Ecology & Zoology

Squid Who Make Their Own Light

Alternative alliterative title: Long-tailed Light-up Loliginids! I've mentioned the two flavors of squid before: the open-ocean oegopsids and the nearshore myopsids. Most myopsids are in the family Loliginidae, which contains all your familiar calama ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 1 2011 - 8:19pm

Sea Lions Compete With Humans For Squid; Lose

Today's squid news comprises four journalistic angles on the same story. See if you can figure out what it is: ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 4 2011 - 10:28pm

Ask, And Ye Shall Receive*

Yesterday I complained  that none of the articles about the New Zealand squid fishery had any quotes from fishing reps. I had only to wait 24 hours for my complaint to be answered! ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 5 2011 - 4:49pm

Glowing Squids, African Edition

A new paper in the African Journal of Marine Science turned me on to the genus Lycoteuthis, an open-ocean squid just bristling with light organs. According to Vecchione and Young: Presumably they exhibit considerable bioluminescent courtship behavior which ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 9 2011 - 1:01am

Babies Found in Discarded Shopping Cart

Before you get too horrified, let me clarify: they were squid babies, and the shopping cart was underwater.  I learned about the discovery from NewsTalkZB, which reports that at an aquarium in Wellington,  30 squid are expected to hatch tonight. Discovery ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 9 2011 - 4:31pm

Nifty Squid Vid

The Humboldt squid's "invasion" of California has been a sophisticated series of move and counter-move. They're here, then they're gone; they're big, then they're small. I've explained--and Professor Gilly has explai ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 11 2011 - 12:59am

A Neon Sign Of Climate Change

Squids are mercurial, unpredictable creatures of extremes. Call them abundant, call them quite rare It depends on the climate--the sea and the air One species expands, another contracts These are the data, these are the facts Sometimes it feels like they&# ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 14 2011 - 9:52pm

Slow Fishing For Squid In The Adriatic

Slow Food's Michele Rumiz has posted a ruminative piece about squid fishing on Unije, a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea: Every November, the island calls its aficionados to fish squid (called lignjada in Croatian).... No sounding leads, nets or el ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 15 2011 - 12:14pm

... And Stay Closed!

To recap:  in 2011, the California market squid fishery caught tons of squid (118,000 tonnes to be exact) and was  all set to close. However, some fishers noted the continued abundance of squid in the ocean and petitioned to  keep catching. Then Oceana sp ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 18 2011 - 8:49pm

"Mini-Shark" Squid (a.k.a. Diamondback Squid)

I missed reporting it when it happened at the end of November, but a group of Indian fishermen caught a rather larger squid than they were expecting: This rare squid, caught by the fishermen of King Jesus boat, looks like a mini shark. It is about three fe ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 19 2011 - 8:32pm