Ecology & Zoology

Is That A Squid on Your Face?

It was the year 2000, I think, and I was on a college field trip to the tidepools. The class was Invertebrate Zoology, so we were flipping rocks over and listing off the phyla as fast as we could identify them. Then someone lifted a big slab and gasped: th ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Apr 5 2012 - 10:35pm

Colossal Squid off Australia

A new instance of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltonii, more commonly known as the colossal squid: A HUGE squid weighing 120 kilograms found off Portland [Australia, not Oregon] last week is believed to be a rare species to south-west waters. Local fisherman and b ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Apr 9 2012 - 6:16pm

Cephalopod April Fools' Roundup

As a gullible sucker myself, I appreciate the cultural tradition of having one day out of the year when I know not to take anyone seriously. Technologists may produce the most labor-intensive April Fools' Jokes, but cephalopods know how to have their ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Mar 26 2015 - 11:09pm

The Sweet Smell Of Synthetic Whale Ambergris

In Moby Dick, Melville scoffs that “fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale.” Following the example of the Ancient Egyptians and Chinese, the fragrance industry has employed this es ...

Article - Rachel Nuwer - Apr 11 2012 - 2:08pm

Cephalo-fiction!

It's called Knowledge and it's a short story by John Frizell in Nature. Did you know that Nature publishes short stories, one at the back of every issue? They do! No human could have grasped the squid's name. Human eyes could not distinguish ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 18 2012 - 12:02pm

Poison Becomes Food: Worm Lives On Carbon Monoxide And Sewer Gas

A small marine worm, Olavius algarvensis, is faced with a scarce food supply in the sandy sediments it lives in off the coast of Elba, so it must deal with a highly poisonous menu: it lives on carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide. O. algarvensis can thrive ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2012 - 4:00pm

A Zero-Sum Game Of Squid?

I may have  mentioned before  that squid fishermen of the Falkland Islands go after two very different species:  Illex argentinus, the shortfin squid, an open-ocean animal that migrates between Falkland and Argentinian waters, and  Loligo gahi, the Patagon ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 24 2012 - 6:11pm

Desperate Fishwives- Goby Girls Go Gaga

Gobies are the little fish you may have seen under the pier or swimming around your feet in salty water if you’ve visited the coasts of Western Europe. These seemingly boring brownish fish live a hectic life, lasting only one year. Up close, the gobies are ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2012 - 4:00am

Hazel Dormice Wonder When To Have Kids Also

If a species´ reproductive strategy is evolutionarily adapted to the environmental constraints encountered by that species in its natural habitat, such as availability of food resources and predictability of the environment, and the aim generally is to pro ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2012 - 8:30pm

The Tiniest Squid Is Also The Winningest Squid

I love four things about this story. First: there is an All England squid catching championship. Did you know that? I did not know that. Second: the weather this year was so bad the competitors were almost completely skunked. Almost. Third: This is the cut ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - May 3 2012 - 7:26pm