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
- 2020-12-21 Octopuses Observed Punching Fish, Perhaps Out of Spite, Scientists Say (Science Alert)
- 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 (Science Alert)
- 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.
- 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.
- Show all previous headlines...
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