LOLuscs!

The LOLluscs are coming!

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Squid dissection recordings

You can go to the Web site of the Te Papa Museum for recordings of their lectures and webcasts about the recently dissected squids. The colossal squid is Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni and the giant squid is Architeuthis.

Lectures recordings

The audio recording of Science Express is available:
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz
/ScienceExpress/ScienceExpress.May.2008.Colossal.Squid.mp3

The other lectures have been filmed. The videos will be available later. Some copyright issues need to be sorted too, so this might take a little longer than expected.

Webcast retransmission

A retransmission of the last hours of the webcast are available here:
http://www.R2.co.nz/20080427/squid-1.asx

Deep Sea News: colossal squid vs. giant squid

Craig at Deep Sea News talks about the two squid being dissected in New Zealand.:

To bring you up to speed, a crack team of teuthologists* dissected both Giant and Colossal Squids at the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand last week. This is where the confusion arises as a Giant Squid AND 2 Colossal Squid were dissected. One of these was the 495kg giant caught over a year ago by fisherman in the Antarctic (oh yeah…she’s a girl!). Seeing the media consistently confuse the two species greatly saddens me. But hey if the media always got it right there would be little need for DSN.

So for clarity the Giant Squid and the Colossal Squid are completely different. Below I provide a list that you can print out and keep in your wallet or purse along with your Seafood Watch card….

Read more.

The colossal squid is Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni and the giant squid is Architeuthis.

Squid dissection online

I got a comment last week from “tepapamuseum”

If you are interested in giant and colossal squid, Te Papa will host and webcast the dissection of 4 giant and 2 colossal squid starting Sunday 27 April. More info can be found on our website: http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/squid/ and of course, on our blog.

For more information, visit the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

You can see the Architeuthis here: “Rare giant squid washes up in Australia.”

Pharyngula’s Friday cephalopod: Octopus abaculus

As someone mentioned, today’s Friday Cephalopod has a rather fractal appearance.

Octopus abaculus is found only in the Phillippine Islands. It was formally described and named in 1997 by M.D. Norman and M.J. Sweeney ¹:

The shallow-water octopuses of the Philippines are diagnosed on the basis of material collected in a series of expeditions by the Smithsonian Institution to the region between 1978 and 1990. Twenty species of shallow-water octopuses are recognised, 18 in the genus Octopus, and one species each in the genera Hapalochlaena and Cistopus. Three new species are described from Philippine waters: Octopus abaculus, O. nocturnus and O. pumilus. Octopuses reported in the earlier work of G. L. Voss on the cephalopod fauna of the Philippines are reviewed and identifications updated. A diagnostic key and illustrations are provided along with information on taxonomy, distribution, aspects of life history and importance in fisheries.

Here’s some information about benthic octopuses (PDF), written by M.D. Norman, from a FAO species identfication guide².

You can see its classification at Zipcode Zoo or the Animal Diversity Web.

1. Norman, M.D. and M.J. Sweeney. The shallow-water octopuses (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) of the Philippines, Invertebrate Taxonomy, 11 (1), 89-140. Full text doi:10.1071/IT95026.
2. Carpenter, Kent E and Volker H. Niem. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery: The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Pacific, Volume 2: Cephalopods, crustaceans, holothurians and sharks. ISSN 1020-6868.

Cephalopod development and evolution from Pharyngula

A news story about an ordinary octopus that developed only six legs prompted PZ Myers at Pharyngula to refer readers back to one of his detailed articles, “Cephalopod development and evolution.”

One… question is how oysters could be related to squid; one’s a flat, sessile blob with a hard shell, and the other is a jet-propelled active predator with eyes and tentacles. Any family resemblance is almost completely lost in their long and divergent evolutionary history….

One way to puzzle out anatomical relationships and make phylogenetic inferences is to study the embryology of the animals. Early development is often fairly well conserved, and the various parts and organization are simpler; I would argue that what’s important in the evolution of complex organisms anyway is the process of multicellular assembly, and it’s the rules of construction that we have to determine to identify pathways of change. Now a recent paper by Shigeno et al. traces the development of Nautilus and works out how the body plan is established, and the evolutionary pattern becomes apparent.

He’s referring to “Shigeno S, Sasaki T, Moritaki T, Kasugai T, Vecchione M, Agata K. (2007) Evolution of the cephalopod head complex by assembly of multiple molluscan body parts: Evidence from Nautilus embryonic development. J Morphol. [Epub ahead of print].”

Ammonoids and nautiloids

Check out these neat images of cephalopods: extinct ammonoids and nautiloids from TONMO.

Squid snacks

On a walk through Toronto’s downtown Chinatown just before Christmas, I noticed some flat, paper-thin, dried squids in front of a Chinese grocery. The proprietor explained, with words and gestures, that the squids are slathered with barbecue sauce and cooked on both sides. You can see the squids piled high on this counter, in bundles, with their tentacles tangled at one end.

Speaking of sustainable fisheries, the three bins at the lower right are full of tiny dried fishes. Perhaps they are used for soup? Then never grow up to be big fish. By any rules I’ve ever heard of, they’d be undersized.

Happy holidays!

Happy noodly holidays!

Balloon animal evolution

I just can’t resist this picture, which was photoshopped from squid eggs for a contest on Pharyngula.

I’ve misplaced info about the source. If you know, contact me so I can get proper permission or give credit.

Rotating cephalopod

With all the buzz about cephalopods on Pharyngula, I had to get a picture when I saw this one in Madiscon, Wisconsin. If you are going to be there, be sure and look for it.

Press the arrow button at lower left to start the video.

October 8: Cephalopod Awareness Day

Glide on over to Cephalopodcast and look at their ceph links.

I’ll celebrate by re-posting a hand-painted cephalopod from a community centre in Toronto. The mural was painted by Amos Danniel in 2003. Here’s the octopus:

Friday cephalopod: LOLsquid

Tonight, someone at LOLcat Buildr has come up with a cephalopod based on the “I can has cheezburgr?” theme:

This is a colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. I believe it’s the first lone ever seen acting as a predator or recorded. It’s known from only about seven specimens, some of which are only fragments from whales’ stomachs. A dying one was caught earlier in 2007.

Who speaks up for slugs?

LotStreetWiz found this bit of folk art on a sidewalk:

Pharyngula’s Friday Cephalopod: Wonderpus photogenicus

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has posted another Friday Cephalopod: this one is Wonderpus photogenicus — that’s it’s real genus and species — with a link to the official species description and some more pictures. The authors could find only about ten specimens.

There are many undescribed cephalopods in Indonesian waters: this is only one of them.