Despite the name, however, Vampire Squids are not really squids. They are more closely evolutionarily allied with octopods, but they aren’t really octopods either. Vampire Squids are evolutionary all alone residing in thier own long branch of the tree of life.

If we look at this phylogeny from Lindgreen and coauthors from 2012 based on multiple genes.

And zoom in at the upper part of the tree

Let’s zoom in a little more

You can clearly see that Vampyroteuthis infernalis resides on alone on its own evolutionary branch. It shares its last common ancestor with the octopods but this a distant relative at best. Many think the Vampire Squid may be”phylogenetic relict” the last surviving member of order cephalopods long ago extinct.

One truly is the loneliest number. While you reflect on this evolutionary and ecological isolation of the Vampire Squid enjoy these videos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

The post The Lonely Existence of Vampire Squids first appeared on Deep Sea News.

1) Cockles got feet, and they know how to use ’em. This isn’t a tongue, or some other fleshy pink appendage, but rather a foot, and a long, distensible, and flexible one at that. When in the sand, this foot extends deep into the sediment, and as it contracts, it pulls the shell down into the sand beyond the eyes of its predators. When you dine on cockles, this is what you eat.

2) Trippy aquatic castanets? Ghost shell from a Japanese horror movie? Nope, this is a scallop doing what scallops do for much of their life – trying to get the heck away from a predator. Unlike cockles that hide beneath the sand, the muscular adductor that snaps the shell shut creates a jet of water that moves them in short, jerky blasts through the water. While their escape plan isn’t all that great, it may just be good enough to get out of the path of slow-moving starfish, their most feared predators.

3) You can almost hear the thumping oonce oonce oonce rave beats where the disco clam lives. It’s not really a clam at all, but a very flamboyant bivalve called the Electric Flame Scallop. Their light show pulsates within the fleshy mantle, making small mesmerizing blasts of light. Unlike most respectable sea creatures, they don’t generate bioluminescence, instead they reflect ambient light through a thin layer of silica microspherules embedded in their flesh, making the light appear as electrical currents in that outer layer of skin. The hot-pink feather boa of tentacles may give them additional glam-rock cred, but they also contain distasteful sulfur compounds, so the blinking lights may give potential predators a fair warning for the subsequent mouthful of regret.

4) Octopus are (literally) cold-blooded killers, and they’ve got a whole toolkit of ways to subdue different kinds of prey. With clams, they grasp the shell with their tentacles, and using a sharp tooth-studded tongue, drill a small hole through the shell and inject a paralytic venom. The drugged clam relaxes its grip and they octopus can easily pry the shell open. With the former tenant now lunch and just a fading memory, the octopus takes over the clam’s home and uses the thick shell for protection from its own predators, keeping one eye open for danger.

5) Squee Alert! Bears and clams rarely meet, but when they do the results can be sickeningly adorable. Grizzly bears along the Pacific Coast often forage for marine invertebrates at low tide, and have even been seen pawing through the sand for clams. This young grizzly is learning the art of clam digging, yet hasn’t perfected the technique, and now has a huge cockle clamped to one of its claws. You’re Welcome!

The post Five Mind-Blowing Bivalve GIFs That Will Blow Your Mind – Your Blown Mind Won’t Believe #6! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Extra Crispy

Behold, the Crusty Nautilis (Allonautilus scrobiculatus), a name so great it could become your next secret agent moniker or CB handle. The tempura-like coating on its shell is a thick periostracum, the outer layer that protects the inner shell, that can get even more crusty with the addition of small marine organisms that sometimes grow on the periostracum. All modern-day nautiluses are related to another group of shelled cephalopods called the Ammonites, once an abundant, widespread, and morphologically & ecologically diverse group that numbered in the thousands of species but suddenly became extinct about 65 million years ago. But the Crusty Nautilus is a survivor, and is the most ancestral or “primitive” of the living nautiloids, having evolved more than 100 million years ago and squeaking through the mass extinction that wiped-out their Ammonite cousins.

Crusty Nautiluses live in deep-waters off eastern Indonesia, New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands. Their shells, empty ones washed ashore after the decomposition of their dead owners, were known to early scientists since the 1700’s, but is wasn’t until 1984 that whole living Crusty Nautiluses were captured, allowing scientists to study their soft anatomy and leading to the understanding of their deep antiquity on the cephalopod family tree.

In Nautilus, you live inside shell, in Spirula, shell live inside YOU! [pronounced with your best Yakov Smirnoff impersonation]

While driving on New Zealand’s 90-Mile Beach I came across a drift of hundreds of these tiny curled shells, not more than a couple of centimeters wide, piled between two sand dunes. They are the inner shell of a squid so distinct that they constitute a single species in a single genus in a single family, in an entirely unique order of cephalopod, the Spirulidae. The Ram’s Horn Squid (Spirula spirula) is a small deep-sea predator with an internal shell divided into gas-filled chambers that act as an internal floatation device as they rise and fall each evening in the Deep Scattering Layer far offshore. Eaten by seabirds, dolphins, porpoises, fur seals, and fishes, the undigestible shell is defecated or regurgitated and rises to the surface of the water, floating atop the ocean until they wash ashore on a beach.

The function of the shell in the body of this 4 centimeter-long squid is a not a mystery – the shell float holds the squid upright in the water – but the large bioluminescent organ atop its head is quite a puzzle. Unlike light-emitting organs in other deep-sea squid, it doesn’t seem to attract prey (as it points light away from the mouth), it doesn’t illuminate the feeding tentacles, and it doesn’t seem to provide the invisible cloak of countershading that balances the downwelling light above with the darkness below. Few live Spirula have been caught and studied in captivity, and there are virtually no studies of them in the wild. There are still mysteries in the sea, and plenty of projects for future graduate students.

 

The Tentacle That Rocks the Cradle

The Brown Paper Nautilus (Argonauta hians) is actually a small sea-going octopus, and like all octopus (octopi, octopuses, octopods, octogenarians, whatever) it has neither an internal nor an external shell. Yet, the female produces this beautiful shell-like structure that is essentially a maritime baby buggy. Her care-free childless year ends after mating with a male that only breeds once before dying, then this merry widow secretes a thin, light, boat-like spiral shell that she fills with a cargo of her eggs. She hops in and pilots this stroller as it floats from the ocean’s surface to hundreds of feet down into the sea, adding and expelling air as a buoyancy mechanism, scooting backwards with jets of water from her siphon.

Mother Paper Nautilus wields a strange pair of tentacles that look like fleshy tennis rackets made by Salvador Dali. These organs secrete the minerals that increase the size of the shell, and she can actually expand these elastic organs to encompass the entire shell, and quickly withdraw them back into the shell of she senses danger. With mom taking up so much space in the crib, most of the young that hatch find the shell too crowded and leave to begin their pelagic larval existence, but a few may hang around for several days, and by then, the female sheds this vessel and begins another year as a free-swimming octopus. During this time she will feed on small invertebrates and baby fish, look for a new mate, and avoid the tuna, dolphins, albatross, and other ocean predators that feed on her kind. In the meantime, the discarded shell floats atop the ocean and may be cast ashore, like the one in the photo, and found by a lucky beachcomber.

Polly Wanna Kraken?

The age-old connection between cuttlefish and parrots may seem strange, but through a long convoluted history of humans, birds, and mollusks, it’s perfectly normal for parrots to chew the living heck out of the dead endoskeleton of a cuttlefish.Cuttlefish, not a fish at all but a family of cephalopods (Sepiidae) more closely related to squid than to anything else, contain what is functionally an internal life jacket. The cuttlebone is a hard oblong structure that spans the length of the body cavity of the cuttlefish, and made of a calcium carbonate structure microscopically infused with tiny air cells. This personal flotation device counter-balances the weight of their dense flesh and tentacles and makes them neutrally buoyant in the water. Lessened of the tethers of gravity, cuttlefish can do what they do best: levitate around seagrass beds or reefs like psychedelic, pulsating zeppelins, zapping small prey with lightning-fast elastic tentacles and living a complex social life with other cuttlefish worthy of a Mexican telenovella.

While that makes perfect sense, here’s where parrots come in. Humans have held parrots captive since Egyptian, and later, Grecian and Roman times, likely traded up along the Nile from eastern Africa or even from western Asia. Caged birds have needs that domesticity can’t deliver like their wild habitats and diets used to. But cuttlefish, an esteemed seafood by their human captors for centuries, brought cuttlebones for entirely different uses. The crunchy mineral nature of the cuttlebone acts like an abrasive emery board for parrots to file down their ever-growing beak. It also provides a much-needed calcium supplement for regrowth of new plumage and for formation of eggs in breeding females, and the satisfying feeling by a frustrated parrot driving its beak deep into the cuttlebone is the avian equivalent of us popping sheets of bubble-wrap. Cuttlebones are a multi-million dollar global industry, with cuttlebones shipped from the Mediterranean, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India to pet shops around the world for those jailed parrots that need that little hunk of a dead cuttlefish to keep them healthy.

The post Malacology Monthly: Cephalopod Compendium first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over on my Google+, Danna Staaf has the best reaction: “Maybe it’s a the plaintive look in their eyes or the supplicative gesture of their arms, but those look more like lost souls than devils to me. So now I’m wondering, do we all have cephalopods for souls, or merely the wicked?”

The post Apparently hell is populated by squid. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The folks over at BirdFellow witnessed an incredible sight: an octopus EATING a seagull in Victoria, BC. I could keep gushing about this awesomeness, but the pictures really speak for themselves:

Can someone please help me make this into an internet meme??

Of course, the octopus was probably getting revenge for this brutal massacre of its kinsmen:

The post Puny Seagull vs. Badass Octopus first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Adam Etzion wrote this about the Vampire Squid in the comments of the last post

Sit back, swish that bourbon around and contemplate the deep red velvet of your smoking jacket. Now imagine its lining being covered with spikes and leather, ready to turn into a bike gang leader’s riding gear at your whim.
That would be cool, wouldn’t it?
Know then that the Vampyroteuthis Infernalis – The Vampire Squid from Hell, can do exactly that.

While certainly not the biggest cephalopod out there, this tough little critter lives in the deep sea, dealing with immense pressures and dim-to-non-existent lighting.
Taxonomically speaking, it’s neither squid nor octopus, but a more primal relative of both.

Spread between its arms is a thick membranous skin and lining the inside of each arm is a series of spiky protrusions. When alarmed, the Vampire Squid covers its body with this mantle, essentially switching itself inside-out, the manly, phallic spikes now jutting outwards toward any badass stupid enough to challenge our deep-sea friend.

This is one invertebrate I would not be happy to meet in an aphotic alley.

How could I not include the Vampire Squid after writing like that. Besides including it here means less writing for me and more time “visiting” with the other esteemed judges.

Next we turn to the Cigarette Cone. Described by Ron:

Incognito deadliness – manly and supremely handsome, and carrying weaponry that is superb; like Sean Connery as 007 (everybody since has been a mere pretender). In the marine animal world, my vote is for Conus geographus. It kills its prey with a wonderfully functional harpoon-like hypodermic tooth [watch video above], and the LD50 of the venom to humans is anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 times that of King Cobra venom. Whereas the King Cobra injects 10s to 100s of mg of venom, an individual of this Conus species can get you with a fraction of a microgram. Anecdotally it is called the “cigarette Cone” for the belief that if stung, you have just enough time to have a cigarette before you are forced to give up smoking permanently.

A real manly snail would allow me to smoke a cigar as opposed to cigarette before I died, but so be it. And let’s not forget Richard Dalton.

Chuck mentioned the Sand Tiger Shark (Carcharias taurus). The siblings eat each other in the womb in the ultimate uterus WWF. But I got to go with the Tiger Shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). It possesses a trait all men wish we has but do not despite all our best efforts…the ability to eat anything. Head over to my other post to read about the most manly of sharks.

@WhySharksMatter nominated the newest species of Yeti Crab, the Hoff Crab. We all know David Hasselhoff is manly. He allowed us the freedom to want a talking car to kick criminal ass and run down the beach with all of our chest hair in full sunny glory. Thank you David! The presence of Yeti Crabs at an Indian Ocean hydrothermal vents reminds us that nature also loves a hairy chest.

And last is the Colossal Squid! Now some might be shocked given my affinity for Giant Squids and the DSN logo that I would go for the Colossal Squid but here me and the judges….mmm judges…out. At half a ton this badass represents the largest invertebrate ever known. The Giant Squid is longer but not heavier. The Colossal Squid has hooks that run the length of its arms. It weighs a half ton and has hooked arms! The eye of the Colossal Squid is bigger than the Giant Squid. In fact the eye is the largest eye of any animal. FYI, Kevin belongs to a sect that believes if you stare into the giant eye you can see God. The Colossal Squid can also cloak those eyes like a Klingon Bird of Prey. Manly! Did I mention hooks? So overall the Colossal Squid is the largest invertebrate on earth with special powers that stem from its large eyes, possesses stealth technology, and massive tentacles lined with razor-sharp hooks. The Giant Squid is the cute cuddly one.

Honorable Mentions: Barnacles (we all know why), Mantis shrimp (for speed, power, and claws shaped like clubs), Seahorse (a daddy pulling equal time), Tufted Puffins (read here), Anglerfish (because the males are nothing but gonad), Lionfish (in the words of RicMac “gluttonous inhalation predator, solitary, venomous, invasive”) and of course

The post 10 Ocean Species Every Man Should Love: Part 2 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Warning: This post is rated PG-13 and is safe for work, but contains links to NSFW adult-only content. Click at your own risk.

Most marine scientists remain blissfully unaware of the existence of tentacle-themed pornography, which originated from Japan. The paths of people who work with real life tentacle-creatures and the paths of people who envision sex with imaginary tentacle-creatures do not often cross.  So when I saw io9’s post on an upcoming tentacle porn anthology aimed at raising money for marine conservation, I had to know more. The anthology, titled Coming Together, Arm in Arm in Arm, is part of the larger Coming Together erotica series, which raises money for charity with the tagline “Doing Good While Being Bad.” Tentacle anthology editor Nobilis Reed and Coming Together series editor Alessia Brio graciously agreed to chat with me about the relationship between eroticized tentacles, marine biology, and saving the ocean.

Miriam Goldstein (MG): Most people not dialed into the hentai world are pretty shocked that tentacles, cold and slimy things they are, can be eroticized. Could you explain (in a PG-13 way) what is sexy about tentacles if you’re a person and not a squid?

Nobilis Reed: This isn’t my first anthology…I edited Tentacle Dreams for Republica Press last year. And what counts as erotic can be different from one person to another. But what I have seen that’s quite common, is the sense of helplessness in the face of something too alien to communicate with. I think you’ll agree that we’ll likely have “conversations” (whatever that means) with dolphins before we do with octopuses. No negotiation, no seduction…just raw lust.

MG: I think many people would describe dolphins like that, horny bastards that they are!

Nobilis Reed: I have heard stories!

MG: Most of the hentai I have seen involves just tentacles and Japanese schoolgirls – can tentacle porn be more than that?

Nobilis Reed: Oh, certainly. In fact, I really want to see stories that transcend that stereotype. I wrote “Monster Whisperer” as a parody of a certain TV series involving pets…where tentacle monsters of various breeds are kept, domesticated.

MG: That actually leads into my next questions – are there ever creatures on the other end of those tentacles? Or is it just about the tentacles?

Alessia Brio: The same question could be asked about romance heroes.

MG: HAH! Many of the same adjectives too, I’m sure.

Nobilis Reed: Absolutely [there are creatures involved]. And not just sea creatures, either – space aliens, creatures from Lovecraftian alternate dimensions, and more. I’d love to see some stories where the “person” with the tentacles is the point-of-view character.

MG: How much of your inspiration do you draw from ocean animals? Do you ever do research for your stories?

Nobilis Reed: Actually, I did a good deal of research. I set up the schedule so that I could release the book during giant octopus mating season.

Alessia Brio: I thought that was brilliant!

MG: So is your work influenced at all by the specific mechanics of real-life cephalopod mating, such as hectocotyli (specialized sex tentacles) and spermatophores?

Nobilis Reed: Well…yes, in an ancillary way. But I used the Nautilus, at least, as the basic animal. I thought their tentacles were a bit more interesting. And in that particular case, it wasn’t looking for a mate, per se. More like a host… to say more would give away the plot of that story, and probably go past PG-13.

MG: How were nautilus tentacles interesting to you, if that won’t give too much away?

Nobilis Reed: Well, octopus and squid tentacles are not entirely symmetrical. They have suckers on one side, of course, and smooth skin on the other. They grip by means of the suckers more than anything else. Nautilus tentacles don’t have suckers. They grip by wrapping around. They’re shorter, and have ridges near the end that function something like fingerprints do on fingers.

MG: Ah, I see. Since we’re on the subject of tentacle morphology, one thing that has always alarmed me about tentacle sex is that squid tentacles are TERRIFYING, with spikes on the suckers and everything. Do people tend to make tentacles more friendly in these stories, or do they incorporate these scarier elements too?

Nobilis Reed: Well, there’s two things going on here. First of all, terror is part of the appeal, especially for women who are fans of the genre. At least, in my experience. But yes, generally speaking, people aren’t getting ripped to shreds. The creature doesn’t want to eat you… at least, not the way a real squid eats a fish. Can I link you to a picture?

MG: Sure. [typed with some trepidation]

Nobilis Reed:

MG: Awwww!

Nobilis Reed: This is a webcomic artist named Humon…one of her series is about a couple, where the heroine is a feminine tentacle monster. So yeah, some folks acknowledge that suckers leave marks.

MG: How did you decide to link tentacle porn with marine conservation?

Nobilis Reed: Well, Tentacle Dreams has been a pretty good seller for me. I wanted to do one for Coming Together, and it seemed the most appropriate. After all, we don’t have a Martian Legal Defense Fund or Friends of Otherworldly Horrors.

MG: I would totally donate to Friends of Otherwordly Horrors. Won’t somebody think of the shoggoths?

Nobilis Reed: I was thinking of starting “International Amorous Invertebrates Association.” The acronym IAIA seemed perfect. But running a charity is a lot of work, and I’d rather write.

MG: [could not type for a moment, laughing too hard at IAIA. If you have no idea why, go here.]

MG: How did you get involved, Alessia?

Alessia Brio: I’ve been publishing Coming Together anthologies since 2005, each for a different cause. Last year, Nobilis pitched a collection & I gave it the green light. He did such a good job, I didn’t hesitate to say yes to the tentacle collection. Most of Coming Together anthologies have been erotica leaning toward erotic romance, but Nobilis brings the sci into the fi. I like that.

Nobilis Reed: Alessia and I met at a science fiction convention.

Alessia Brio: Coming Together is all over the map, really It started as strictly erotica — all types including sci/fi. I prefer to have a theme that isn’t related to sexual pairings. For example, I won’t do a strictly male-male collection, because humans are sexually diverse and I want our work to reflect that “erotic cocktail.”

MG: To bring it back around to the tentacles, how did you select Oceana as your charity of choice?

Nobilis Reed: I went to a website called Charity Navigator, which rates charities by transparency, accountability and finances. Oceana scored very high, and I went to the website and looked it over. Since my readers are global, I wanted a charity that was global in scope.

MG: Where can people buy the book?

Alessia Brio: The book will be available in ebook via all major outlets & in print via Amazon.com.

MG: Thank you so much for your time, and for saving the oceans in a most unusual way!

The post Interview: New anthology of tentacle porn reaches for marine conservation first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post TGIF – The Flamboyant Cuttlefish first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Now that Bruce is back in Hawaii, where he was curator of the Waikiki Aquarium for many years, I look forward to his uploading other gems from a stellar career in aquarium biology and ichthyology.   It promises to be good, because over that time he and Marj also became accomplished underwater photographers and videographers.

The post Baby Nautilus, is there anything cuter? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Via the most excellent SMBC which you should add to your feed reader ASAP

The post In nomeni patri, et fili, et spiritus octi first appeared on Deep Sea News.