a giant cephalopod in iceland, 1639

A paper by Prof. Japetus Steenstrup from 1849 quotes reports from the Icelandic naturalist Eg. Olafsen on a giant cephalopod that drifted onto the shore of Iceland in 1639. It was reported that on Thingoresand in Hunevandsyssel, "a peculiar creature or sea monster was stranded with length and thickness like those of a man; it had 7 tails... These tails were densely covered with a kind of button, and the buttons looked as if there was an eye ball in each button, and round the eye ball was an eyelid, these eyelids looked as if they were guilded. On this sea monster there was in addition a single tail which had grown about above those 7 tails; it was extremely long, 4-5 fms [7.50-9.40 m]."

Eg. Olafsen also had a drawing of the creature. Sadly, according to Steenstrup, "This drawing, however, no longer exists, since together with the majority of Eg. Olafsen's books it feel a prey to the waves when he lost his life on his way home from the place where he had celebrated his marriage, an irreparable loss to Iceland..."

my sushi dream.

more underwater ecosystem interactions in dorchester.

MaryCat alerted me to the fact that the sink octopus appears again in a recent post of hers interacting with a halibut (see the sink octopus in the corner?). Luckily for the sink octopus (since halibut are known to enjoy a tasty cephalopod now and again) it doesn't look like this particular halibut will be eating anything anytime soon.

underwater ecosystem discovered in dorchester, ma

MaryCat discovered this amazing example of oceanic ecology in her new apartment. We are still unsure what the main food stuffs of these two organisms are. However, when the octopus was given a light squeeze, a liquid exuded from its filament-like tentacles. After extensive lab testing, we realized this liquid was dish soap. The sponge still isn't divulging its habits, even after we threatened to scrub the toilet with it.

pfd (personal flotation device).

I know you stay up late at night wondering how nautiluses and cuttlefish stay at the depth they want to be at in the ocean. How do they keep from sinking to the bottom, being crushed by the pressure (cue Queen song here), or floating up to the top and being eaten by ever so many predators? It turns out that nautiluses and cuttlefish have the ability to adjust their neutral buoyancy (i.e. they don't sink, and they don't have to swim to stay at a certain depth). They achieve this by having a mixture of gas and sea water inside of them that they can adjust. This is all due to a very cool organ known as the siphuncle that uses active transport and the balance of water and gas in the animal to regulate its buoyancy. This means they use hardly any energy maintaining the position they want to be at in the ocean. Nautiluses can go to lower depths in the day to avoid predators (down to 600 meters!) and then come back up to more shallow levels at night to feed. (Info taken from "An Introduction to the Invertebrates, 2nd Edition by Janet Moore, 2006, Cambridge University Press.)

So, everyone: I'm trading in my water wings for a siphuncle next time I go swimming.

giant squid hickey

We know giant squid are very, very, large. And very, very awesome. Supposedly these squid become embroiled with whales in the deep murky depths of the ocean (the whales are supposedly trying to eat them). Well, I am here to posit a new theory: the squid and the whale are not fighting. Oh no. Verily, I believe they are having an illicit love affair. And if it is wrong to have a squid and a whale love each other then I don't know what this world has come to. Oh, to be in that whale's place!

sunday brunch.

If you doubted the existence of the baconopod, doubt no more. Doesn't this stained slide of tentacle taken from the interweb look like...bacon? Whoever made this slide also knows about the baconopod's existence. Well, whoever you are, don't think you can scoop me with an article in a top tier journal about the baconopod. I already submitted my manuscript to Science, so suck it.