Friday Squid Blogging: LOLSquid
It’s supposed to be a classic, but I’ve never seen it before.
Entries Tagged "squid"
Page 83 of 108
Friday Squid Blogging: 500-Million-Year-Old Squid
Early squid:
New Canadian research into 500 million-year-old carnivore fossils has revealed an early ancestor of modern-day squids and octopuses, solving the mystery surrounding a previously unclassifiable creature.
“This is significant because it means that primitive cephalopods were around much earlier than we thought, and offers a reinterpretation of the long-held origins of this important group of marine animals,” Martin Smith, University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum paleontology PhD student, said in a release.
More:
This was one of those confusing, uninterpretable Cambrian animals, represented by only one poorly preserved specimen. Now, 91 new specimens have been dug up and interpreted, and it makes sense to call it a cephalopod. It has two camera eyes—not arthropod-like compound eyes—on stalks, an axial cavity containing paired gills like the mantles of modern cephalopods, and a flexible siphon opening into that cavity. There are also subtle similarities in the structure of the connective tissue in the lateral fins. Obviously, it has a pair of tentacles; no mouthparts have been preserved, but there are hints in the form of dark deposits between the tentacles, which may be all that’s left of the mouthparts - and are in the right place for a cephalopod ancestor.
Friday Squid Blogging: The Contents of Squid Stomachs
Not that interesting, really.
Preliminarily, I can tell you that within my sample, cannibalism seems to be on the rise, myctophid consumption is falling, and a lot more squid may be dying hungry.
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid T-Shirts
Some nice ones (ignore the dinosaurs).
Friday Squid Blogging: The Colossal Squid isn't a Vicious Predator
New research shows that, even though it’s 15 meters long, it’s not the kraken of myth:
Its large size and predatory nature fuelled the ancient myth of the underwater “kraken” seamonster and modern speculation that the colossal squid must be aggressive and fast, attributes that allow it to prey on fish and even give sperm whales a hard time.
Yet as the creature is seldom encountered let alone studied, there are no direct measurements of the colossal squid’s behaviour.
So instead, the team used a set of routine metabolic rates for other deep-sea squid species and extrapolated the data to match the colossal squid’s size.
[…]
“Our findings demonstrate that the colossal squid has a daily energy consumption 300-fold to 600-fold lower than those of other similar-sized top predators of the Southern Ocean, such as baleen and toothed whales,” says Dr Rosa.
[…]
This study reveals a single 5kg Antarctic toothfish would provide enough nourishment for a 500kg colossal squid to survive for 200 days.
[…]
“The colossal squid is not a voracious predator capable of high-speed predator-prey interactions,” says Dr Rosa.
“It is rather, an ambush or sit-and-float predator that uses the hooks on its arms and tentacles to ensnare prey that unwittingly approach.”
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Purity Test
I didn’t know this:
A Squid is a motorcycle rider who, experienced or not, rides outside his abilities and sets poor examples by attire, propriety, and general behavior on the motorcycle.
115 questions in the test.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.