Squid typically die after spawning. Their orphaned eggs are left alone in the cold brine to develop and hatch, never knowing a mother's tender caress.
But as in all of biology, there are exceptions.
It's strangely appropriate that the second of these exceptions has entered, stage left, just as I am preparing to exit, stage right, in order to engage in the intensive parental care typical of humans. I'll be spawning within the next few weeks, and taking a hiatus from the blogosphere to focus on my in-home developmental biology experiment.
So let me leave you with the remarkable image of a mama squid caring for her young--only the second species of brooding squid to be discovered, ever! And by some of my favorite people, too: Stephanie Bush, Henk-Jan Hoving, Chrissy Huffard, Bruce Robison, and Lou Zeidberg. Here's Figure 1 from their hot-off-the-presses paper Brooding and sperm storage by the deep-sea squid Bathyteuthis berryi:
A. Mama holding her eggs. B. Zoom on the egg sheet. C. Zoom-zoom on the embryos.
As my own hatchling grows, I may re-emerge on social networks before I start blogging again, so if you want to make sure you don't miss any squiddy goodness, you can follow me on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
In the meantime, the internet hosts many other superb sources of cephalopod news, most notably TONMO. And Deep-Sea News rarely misses a good squid story, especially with their new mascot.
Keep it tentacular, friends!
But as in all of biology, there are exceptions.
It's strangely appropriate that the second of these exceptions has entered, stage left, just as I am preparing to exit, stage right, in order to engage in the intensive parental care typical of humans. I'll be spawning within the next few weeks, and taking a hiatus from the blogosphere to focus on my in-home developmental biology experiment.
So let me leave you with the remarkable image of a mama squid caring for her young--only the second species of brooding squid to be discovered, ever! And by some of my favorite people, too: Stephanie Bush, Henk-Jan Hoving, Chrissy Huffard, Bruce Robison, and Lou Zeidberg. Here's Figure 1 from their hot-off-the-presses paper Brooding and sperm storage by the deep-sea squid Bathyteuthis berryi:
A. Mama holding her eggs. B. Zoom on the egg sheet. C. Zoom-zoom on the embryos.
As my own hatchling grows, I may re-emerge on social networks before I start blogging again, so if you want to make sure you don't miss any squiddy goodness, you can follow me on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
In the meantime, the internet hosts many other superb sources of cephalopod news, most notably TONMO. And Deep-Sea News rarely misses a good squid story, especially with their new mascot.
Keep it tentacular, friends!
