Entries Tagged "squid"

Page 73 of 107

Friday Squid Blogging: How Squid Hear

Interesting research:

The squid use two closely spaced organs called statocysts to sense sound.

“I think of a statocyst as an inside-out tennis ball,” explains Dr Mooney.

“It’s got hairs on the inside and this little dense calcium stone that sits on those hair cells.

“What happens is that the sound wave actually moves the squid back and forth, and this dense object stays relatively still. It bends the hair cells and generates a nerve response to the brain.”

[…]

“They react in about 10 milliseconds,” he says. “That’s really fast; it’s essentially a reflex. That’s really important in terms of behavioural responses because they’re not thinking about processing it; they’re not deciding whether they should react—they’re just doing it.

And he adds: “The responses can be really dynamic. They can be a change in colour; they can be jetting (moving quickly) or inking responses. Squid are also very cool because you can look at a range of colour changes—is it a really startling colour change or a more subtle change?

“Squid can probably use their hearing to find their way around the environment—to sense the soundscape of the environment; for example, to find their way towards a reef or away from a reef, towards the surface or away from the surface.”

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Posted on March 30, 2012 at 4:28 PM • View Comments

Friday Squid Blogging: Humboldt Squid Can Dive to 1.5 km

Yet another impressive Humboldt squid feat:

“We’ve seen them make really impressive dives up to a kilometre and a half deep, swimming straight through a zone where there’s really low oxygen,” the Hopkins Marine Station researcher said.

“They’re able to spend several hours at this kilometre-and-a-half-deep, and then they go back up and continue their normal daily swimming behaviour. It’s just a really impressive, really fast, deep dive through what is quite a harsh environment.”

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Posted on March 9, 2012 at 4:01 PM • View Comments

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Can Fly to Save Energy

There’s a new study that shows that squid are faster in the air than in the water.

Squid of many species have been seen to ‘fly’ using the same jet-propulsion mechanisms that they use to swim: squirting water out of their mantles so that they rocket out of the sea and glide through the air. Until now, most researchers have thought that such flight was a way to avoid predators, but Ronald O’Dor, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, has calculated that propelling themselves through the air may actually be an efficient way for squid to travel long distances.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Posted on February 24, 2012 at 4:08 PM • View Comments

1 … 71 72 73 74 75 … 107

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.