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
- 2021-04-22 Seeing Inside the Newly Discovered Emperor Dumbo Octopus (Hakai)
- The discovery of the emperor Dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis imperator) stemmed from the use of nondestructive MRI and CT scans -- techniques that could revolutionize taxonomy. (Original paper.)
- 2021-04-02 Mysterious "Blobs" Near Norway Are Full Of Squid Mucus And Embryos (Live Science)
- Each enormous, jelly-like orb, more than 3 feet (1 meter) wide, hovering in place partway between the seafloor and the surface, could contain hundreds of thousands of eggs of a common squid called Illex coindetii, a DNA analysis revealed.
- 2021-03-26 Vampire Squid Ancestor Died In "Eternal Embrace" With Its Dinner (Live Science)
- About 180 million years ago, an eight-armed vampyromorph predator seized its underwater prey -- another eight-armed beastie -- and began to nibble on it, until disaster struck and they both died from suffocation, a new study finds.
- 2021-03-25 Sleeping Octopuses May Have Dreams, But They're Probably Brief (NPR)
- Octopuses have alternating periods of "quiet" and "active" sleep that make their rest similar to that of mammals, despite being separated by more than 500 million years of evolution.
- 2021-03-05 Octopuses Not Only Feel Pain Physically, But Emotionally Too, First Study Finds (ScienceAlert)
- An important new study suggests octopuses are likely to feel and respond to pain in a similar way to mammals - the first strong evidence for this capacity in any invertebrate.
- 2021-03-02 Cuttlefish Can Pass The Marshmallow Test (Ars Technica)
- Certain species show a remarkable ability to delay gratification, notably great apes, corvids, and parrots, while other species do not (such as rodents, chickens, and pigeons.) Add the cuttlefish to the former category.
- 2021-02-22 Evidence Of Predation By Octopuses Pushed Back 25M Years (phys.org)
- New research unveiled the earliest evidence of octopus predation in the fossil record: tiny holes drilled in the clams they preyed upon during the Cretaceous period about 75M years ago.
- 2021-02-20 Octopuses Have A Secret Sense To Keep Their 8 Arms Out Of Trouble (NY Times)
- Even when an octopus can't see light with its eyes, its arms seem to know it is there.
- 2020-12-21 Octopuses Observed Punching Fish, Perhaps Out of Spite, Scientists Say (ScienceAlert)
- Biologist Eduardo Sampaio from the University of Lisbon in Portugal: "Octopuses and fishes are known to hunt together, taking advantage of the other's morphology and hunting strategy... Since multiple partners join, this creates a complex network where investment and pay-off can be unbalanced, giving rise to partner control mechanisms." Original paper: "Octopuses punch fishes during collaborative interspecific hunting events" -- "Here we report a series of events ... where different Octopus cyanea individuals engage in active displacement of partner fish during collaborative hunting."
- 2020-11-11 Rare Bigfin Squid Found In Australian Waters (New Scientist)
- The extremely rare bigfin squid (Magnapinna), a deep-sea creature found more than 2 km underwater, has been spotted in Australian waters for the first time.
- 2020-10-29 First-Ever Footage Of Ram's Horn Squid (ScienceAlert)
- Ram's horn shells are small, delicate spiral structures beachcombers can commonly find throughout the world. Yet despite their ubiquity, the original owners of these shells (Spirula spirula) are extremely elusive. Until now, we've never had footage of a single one in the wild.
- 2020-10-29 When It Comes To Octopuses, Taste Is For Suckers (NY Times)
- Octopuses can taste what their arms touch, and scientists have figured out how. Original paper: Molecular Basis of Chemotactile Sensation in Octopus.
- 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.
- Show all previous headlines...
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