ZPi Cephalopod News
ZPi Blog Cephalopod Topic
- 2020-08-27 Noon: 22nd Century - "Pilgrims and Wayfarers"
- 2019-06-03 Fae Archaic: A Crime-ridden Fairy Tale
- 2019-05-14 Possible Tree Ammonite Discovered
- 2019-02-25 Tree Octopus Mural In Spokane
- 2019-02-24 Devon Hedge Octopus
- 2019-02-23 "Drom Lunarius": Tree Octopi, Pyramid Eye, & Camels
- More entries about (and sometimes by) cephalopods...
Special Reports
- 2007-02-22 (UPDATED 2007-03-24) Larger Colossal Squid Caught
- New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea have caught a colossal squid weighing an estimated 495kg. Click link for collected factoids.
Older Special Reports:
- 2003-07-01 (UPDATED 2003-07-11) Chilean Blob: Not A Cephalopod
- A 12 meter long blob was found on a beach in Chile. It was suspected of being a giant octopus. Turned out to be decayed whale blubber.
- 2003-04-01 (UPDATED 2003-05-24) Colossal Squid Caught
- Fishermen near Antarctica have caught a rare, virtually intact specimen of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni (or "colossal squid") -- a very large, very aggressive squid with scores of razor-sharp hooks on its tentacles. Includes article round-up, photos and email from Steve O'Shea.
Recent Headlines
- 2020-09-17 Possible Rare "Seven-Armed Octopus" Found On Whidbey Island, WA (Whidbey News-Times)
- The tentacles of a deep-sea creature that washed up on a Whidbey beach have reached across the country. Scientists from universities and research centers as far away as the Smithsonian Institution have identified it as a rare seven-armed octopus (Haliphron atlanticus), although the conclusion isn't unanimous.
- 2020-05-29 World's Deepest Octopus Captured On Camera (BBC)
- The deepest ever sighting of an octopus has been made by cameras on the Indian Ocean floor, 7,000m down in the Java Trench. Researchers, who report the discovery in the journal Marine Biology, say it's a species of "Dumbo" octopus (genus Grimpoteuthis). Original paper: "First in situ observation of Cephalopoda at hadal depths"
- 2020-03-23 New Genetic Editing Powers Discovered In Squid (Science Daily)
- Scientists have discovered that squid massively edit their own genetic instructions not only within the nucleus of their neurons, but also within the axon.
- 2020-02-16 Reconstructing fossil cephalopods: Endoceras giganteum (Incertae Sedis Blog)
- The orthoceratoid Endoceras is the both the longest extinct cephalopod and largest Paleozoic invertebrate. By incorporating data from both orthoceratoids and extant nautiluses, Tyler Greenfield has attempted a more rigorous restoration of this taxon.
- 2020-02-09 Cuttlefish Skimp On Lunch When There's Shrimp For Dinner (Science Focus)
- When European common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) know that their favourite food will be on the menu at dinnertime, they'll eat less for lunch, according to new research from the University of Cambridge.
- 2020-01-29 Squid Brains Are Nearly As Complex As Dog Brains, Researchers Claim (ScienceAlert)
- Using MRI, researchers have discovered and described previously unknown major neural pathways in a bigfin reef squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana). "We can see that a lot of neural circuits are dedicated to camouflage and visual communication," said Wen-Sung Chung. Paper in iScience: "Toward an MRI-Based Mesoscale Connectome of the Squid Brain", Chung et al.
- 2020-01-16 The Legendary, Mysterious Giant Squid's Genome Is Revealed (MBL)
- Important clues about the anatomy and evolution of the mysterious giant squid (Architeuthis dux) are revealed through publication of its full genome sequence. Paper in GigaScience: "A draft genome sequence of the elusive giant squid, Architeuthis dux", da Fonseca et al.
- 2020-01-08 What Scientists Learned by Putting 3-D Glasses on Cuttlefish (The Atlantic)
- Some cuttlefish absolutely refuse to wear 3-D glasses, "but about 20 to 30 percent didn't seem to be bothered. Everyone was very surprised." Original paper: "Cuttlefish use stereopsis to strike at prey", R. C. Feord, et al.
- 2019-11-25 Fossils Reveal Swimming Patterns Of Long Extinct Cephalopod (phys.org)
- Scientists use a computational fluid dynamics model to study the locomotion of ammonoids, a group of cephalopods that swam the oceans for almost 300 million years before going extinct.
- 2019-10-16 WHALE FALL (Nautilus Live)
- The Nautilus team discovered a whale fall (dead whale on ocean floor) while exploring off California's coast. Watch video of deep-sea octopuses feasting on its blubber. Or, see a photo of one of the octopuses examining the Hercules ROV.
- 2019-10-09 The Deeper This Purple Octopus Lives, The Bumpier Its Skin (NatGeo)
- A new study revealed that the wartier the Pacific warty octopuses (Graneledone pacifica) is, the deeper it lives.
- 2019-09-23 Octopus Dreaming (video) (PBS)
- Watch the brilliant color changes of a sleeping octopus. Clip from the PBS documentary "Octopus: Making Contact". Follow-up: "Was Heidi the Octopus Really Dreaming?"
- 2019-08-06 Octopus Bites Captor (KIRO)
- A human participant in a fishing derby in the Tacoma Narrows posed for a photo contest with a captured octopus on her face. The octopus bit her in self-defense. The human eventually went to the emergency room. "And I'm still in pain," she said. "I'm on three different antibiotics. This can come and go, the swelling, for months they say." She says the whole painful experience taught her a valuable lesson about handling live octopuses, which have powerful beaks and poisonous venom. No word on the condition of the octopus.
- 2019-07-28 How to Make Quicksand Like an Octopus (JSTOR)
- The southern sand octopus (Octopus kaurna) lives in sand flats around southern Australia and Tasmania. Unlike most octopuses, the sand octopus cannot change its color. Instead it uses its siphon to blast sand beneath it, suspending the sand in water, making its own quicksand that it can pull itself down into for shelter.
- 2019-07-26 Sinuous Squid Filmed Alive for First Time (Nautilus Live)
- The Asperoteuthis mangoldae squid is a recently discovered deep-sea species that was just seen alive for the first time! Researchers think this unusual squid's tail may help it mimic other animals, like a stinging siphonophore. Also from Nautilus: Rare encounter with piglet squid.
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