Cee [They/Them]

I really like cephalopods and other marine life!!!!

[cee-sees-the-sea]

I should draw my Lancer OCs for a Squadron called Midnight Blues

But then that means I have to be....emotionally vulnerable.....one could say Impaired and Shredded....

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups, enabling grip and a finer degree of manipulation. Lining the circumference of each suction cup is a serrated chitin ring, allowing the Giant Squid to ‘bite’ and hold onto its prey (A). Colossal squids, the largest cephalopod by sheer mass, go a step further, gaining rows of hooks to increase the prey-capturing potential of the arms. On the midsection of the tentacle club, the manus, sit an average of 23 specialized hooks (B)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

These tentacle hooks differ from the arm hooks in that they sit on a short stalk, with the back of the hook growth lying flush with the flesh, enabling these hooks 360 degrees of rotation. This allows the hooks to move with the captured prey as they struggle, placing them into a dilemma of suffering vs survival as though Colossal Squid are some sort of moustache twirling villain of the deep ocean.

This comparison is one I will address further in a separate series of posts analysing the construction of narrative in nature documentaries and the problems with the implication of that. The point being made here is that while I am making a whimsical comparison, I do still find myself concerned with whether or not villainizing predators, or even predation itself, in a nefarious light is something I should be doing as a science communicator with an appreciation for them as these crazily evolved organisms. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

If we do want to talk about perception, and the issues we encounter with it as people with a fondness for the strange, beautiful, horrifying and ethereal creatures that dwell in the depths, I think that the Bigfin Squid Magnapinna serves as a good catalyst for that conversation though. More specifically, I think that the public perception vs scientific documentation of the Bigfin Squid is the thing to discuss, but to do that I must first talk about the squid itself.

Magnapinna is a species of deep-ocean Squid, most notably characterised by its large, gossamer fins and strange, bow-legged arms. It is thought to be the deepest occurring, given that it has been observed at Hadal Depths (6000+M depth). Little is known about this species when fully grown, as most of the collected specimens have only developed to the paralarval or juvenile stage of growth. I got curious about their taxonomy while researching them and discovered that Wikipedia bullies them by calling them “bizarre” and “unusual”. If you are into the oddities of the deep ocean, you have probably come across this footage of one being observed in 2000 via ROV in the Gulf of Mexico.

This footage is also the first time it became properly known to modern science. Originally its long, thin arms that matched in length with its tentacles as well as its drifting, sedentary appearance lead scientists to propose that it primarily fed by collecting zooplankton passively. Since then, it has been observed a number of times at great depth via ROV, where we have witnessed its direct ability to actively manipulate its long tendril-like arms (though presumably this is in reaction to the presence of the ROV, which could indicate a preference for inaction). Either way, as is the case with most deep-ocean organisms, we don't know how it properly feeds or its diet, and can only operate on guesswork due to the lack of data to work with. 

[phoronopsis]

this isn't related to cephalopods at all, but re: bilateral symmetry, there's actually some fairly recent (like, last 15 years) evidence that cnidarians actually evolved from bilaterally symmetric ancestors! Contrary to popular belief, a lot of sea anemones and coral polyps, though externally radial, actually have a bilateral digestive system. This could be a case of convergent evolution, but what's really remarkable is that embryonically, cnidarians develop this bilateral symmetry the same way as bilaterians, *using the same regulatory genetic pathways*! The polyp body plan is considered to be the ancestral state for cnidarians, while the "simplified" swimming jellyfish body plan probably is a secondary development, as suggested by the cnidarian fossil record and evidence of loss of body patterning genes in jellyfish. Together, this suggests the really exciting hypothesis that bilateral symmetry is actually the original ancestral state for the common ancestor of cnidarians and bilaterians, and rather than bilaterians being the ones who made the innovation of bilateral symmetry from radial, cnidarians would be the group that altered their symmetry instead! Sources: 1, 2, 3

(Echinoderms like starfish also are secondarily radial; they have bilateral larvae who undergo a very weird metamorphosis into their pentaradial adult form. Search "brachiolaria", "pluteus larva", or "auricularia larva" for pics!)

It's also a common misconception that cnidarians don't have central nervous systems. They're often said to have merely diffuse "nerve nets," and they do, but they also have a condensed ring-shaped nerve that integrates signals from across the body, basically constituting a central nervous system in all respects besides not actually having a singular "brain". In particular, there's been a lot of research into the nervous systems of box jellyfish, which are probably the most specialized among cnidarians due to their unique possession of true image-forming eyes, which they use for navigating both long and short distances as well detecting prey. One study from just last year even found evidence that box jellies display associative learning! Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

(I believe there's also been research into the learning capabilities of echinoderms but I'm not as familiar with the literature. I know starfish do actually have image-forming eyes on their arms, which at least one species uses to navigate, though they also definitely do a lot of smelling and stuff as well. Source: 1)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

YO THIS INFORMATION GOES HARD AS FUCK I LOVE LEARNING 🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣💯💯💯💯💯💯

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups, enabling grip and a finer degree of manipulation. Lining the circumference of each suction cup is a serrated chitin ring, allowing the Giant Squid to ‘bite’ and hold onto its prey (A). Colossal squids, the largest cephalopod by sheer mass, go a step further, gaining rows of hooks to increase the prey-capturing potential of the arms. On the midsection of the tentacle club, the manus, sit an average of 23 specialized hooks (B)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

These tentacle hooks differ from the arm hooks in that they sit on a short stalk, with the back of the hook growth lying flush with the flesh, enabling these hooks 360 degrees of rotation. This allows the hooks to move with the captured prey as they struggle, placing them into a dilemma of suffering vs survival as though Colossal Squid are some sort of moustache twirling villain of the deep ocean.

This comparison is one I will address further in a separate series of posts analysing the construction of narrative in nature documentaries and the problems with the implication of that. The point being made here is that while I am making a whimsical comparison, I do still find myself concerned with whether or not villainizing predators, or even predation itself, in a nefarious light is something I should be doing as a science communicator with an appreciation for them as these crazily evolved organisms. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

If we do want to talk about perception, and the issues we encounter with it as people with a fondness for the strange, beautiful, horrifying and ethereal creatures that dwell in the depths, I think that the Bigfin Squid Magnapinna serves as a good catalyst for that conversation though. More specifically, I think that the public perception vs scientific documentation of the Bigfin Squid is the thing to discuss, but to do that I must first talk about the squid itself.

Magnapinna is a species of deep-ocean Squid, most notably characterised by its large, gossamer fins and strange, bow-legged arms. It is thought to be the deepest occurring, given that it has been observed at Hadal Depths (6000+M depth). Little is known about this species when fully grown, as most of the collected specimens have only developed to the paralarval or juvenile stage of growth. I got curious about their taxonomy while researching them and discovered that Wikipedia bullies them by calling them “bizarre” and “unusual”. If you are into the oddities of the deep ocean, you have probably come across this footage of one being observed in 2000 via ROV in the Gulf of Mexico.

This footage is also the first time it became properly known to modern science. Originally its long, thin arms that matched in length with its tentacles as well as its drifting, sedentary appearance lead scientists to propose that it primarily fed by collecting zooplankton passively. Since then, it has been observed a number of times at great depth via ROV, where we have witnessed its direct ability to actively manipulate its long tendril-like arms (though presumably this is in reaction to the presence of the ROV, which could indicate a preference for inaction). Either way, as is the case with most deep-ocean organisms, we don't know how it properly feeds or its diet, and can only operate on guesswork due to the lack of data to work with. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

CITATIONS!!!! CITATIONS BECAUSE IM A GOOD ACADEMIC AND I WANT TO GIVE YOU ACADEMIC RESOURCES TO LOOK AT!!!!! CITATIONS!!!!

Pastebin.com is the number one paste tool since 2002. Pastebin is a website where you can store text online for a set period of time.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

One thing i really like about studying deep ocean science is that a lot of the terminology I encounter just makes me feel like a wizard. Oh, what am I doing for my end of year project? Studying abyssal polychaete worms. Oh and they came from one of the many Abyssal Plains across the seabed? The same ones we discovered special metals from that produce "Dark Oxygen"? Oh ok.

In all seriousness though abyssal plains, ridges, etc, just the general seabed is really important part of the wider marine ecosystem as a whole, and I think that as a (hopefully soon graduated) scientist I have a vague ethical duty to inform people about them.

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone is a stretch of seafloor across the Pacific ocean. Divided into various sections and overseen by the International Seabed Authority, it regularly faces consideration by various international bodies for deep-ocean mining claims. The reason for this is because of these small, potato-sized clumps of precious metals that sit on the seabed. They have the exact mix of metals to act as batteries, and produce oxygen in the lightless to near-lightless depth of the Abyssal zone via electrolysis. This is INSANE for a number of reasons but my personal favourite is its implications for the origin of life, which previously where thought to have been most probably possible via anerobic chemosynthetic means. We could be looking at the cauldron of life and deciding to take it apart for (very expensively margined) electric cars, basically.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups, enabling grip and a finer degree of manipulation. Lining the circumference of each suction cup is a serrated chitin ring, allowing the Giant Squid to ‘bite’ and hold onto its prey (A). Colossal squids, the largest cephalopod by sheer mass, go a step further, gaining rows of hooks to increase the prey-capturing potential of the arms. On the midsection of the tentacle club, the manus, sit an average of 23 specialized hooks (B)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

These tentacle hooks differ from the arm hooks in that they sit on a short stalk, with the back of the hook growth lying flush with the flesh, enabling these hooks 360 degrees of rotation. This allows the hooks to move with the captured prey as they struggle, placing them into a dilemma of suffering vs survival as though Colossal Squid are some sort of moustache twirling villain of the deep ocean.

This comparison is one I will address further in a separate series of posts analysing the construction of narrative in nature documentaries and the problems with the implication of that. The point being made here is that while I am making a whimsical comparison, I do still find myself concerned with whether or not villainizing predators, or even predation itself, in a nefarious light is something I should be doing as a science communicator with an appreciation for them as these crazily evolved organisms. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

If we do want to talk about perception, and the issues we encounter with it as people with a fondness for the strange, beautiful, horrifying and ethereal creatures that dwell in the depths, I think that the Bigfin Squid Magnapinna serves as a good catalyst for that conversation though. More specifically, I think that the public perception vs scientific documentation of the Bigfin Squid is the thing to discuss, but to do that I must first talk about the squid itself.

Magnapinna is a species of deep-ocean Squid, most notably characterised by its large, gossamer fins and strange, bow-legged arms. It is thought to be the deepest occurring, given that it has been observed at Hadal Depths (6000+M depth). Little is known about this species when fully grown, as most of the collected specimens have only developed to the paralarval or juvenile stage of growth. I got curious about their taxonomy while researching them and discovered that Wikipedia bullies them by calling them “bizarre” and “unusual”. If you are into the oddities of the deep ocean, you have probably come across this footage of one being observed in 2000 via ROV in the Gulf of Mexico.

This footage is also the first time it became properly known to modern science. Originally its long, thin arms that matched in length with its tentacles as well as its drifting, sedentary appearance lead scientists to propose that it primarily fed by collecting zooplankton passively. Since then, it has been observed a number of times at great depth via ROV, where we have witnessed its direct ability to actively manipulate its long tendril-like arms (though presumably this is in reaction to the presence of the ROV, which could indicate a preference for inaction). Either way, as is the case with most deep-ocean organisms, we don't know how it properly feeds or its diet, and can only operate on guesswork due to the lack of data to work with. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups, enabling grip and a finer degree of manipulation. Lining the circumference of each suction cup is a serrated chitin ring, allowing the Giant Squid to ‘bite’ and hold onto its prey (A). Colossal squids, the largest cephalopod by sheer mass, go a step further, gaining rows of hooks to increase the prey-capturing potential of the arms. On the midsection of the tentacle club, the manus, sit an average of 23 specialized hooks (B)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

These tentacle hooks differ from the arm hooks in that they sit on a short stalk, with the back of the hook growth lying flush with the flesh, enabling these hooks 360 degrees of rotation. This allows the hooks to move with the captured prey as they struggle, placing them into a dilemma of suffering vs survival as though Colossal Squid are some sort of moustache twirling villain of the deep ocean.

This comparison is one I will address further in a separate series of posts analysing the construction of narrative in nature documentaries and the problems with the implication of that. The point being made here is that while I am making a whimsical comparison, I do still find myself concerned with whether or not villainizing predators, or even predation itself, in a nefarious light is something I should be doing as a science communicator with an appreciation for them as these crazily evolved organisms. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups, enabling grip and a finer degree of manipulation. Lining the circumference of each suction cup is a serrated chitin ring, allowing the Giant Squid to ‘bite’ and hold onto its prey (A). Colossal squids, the largest cephalopod by sheer mass, go a step further, gaining rows of hooks to increase the prey-capturing potential of the arms. On the midsection of the tentacle club, the manus, sit an average of 23 specialized hooks (B)

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

To properly put things into scale, go and measure your bed. Figure out the size of it. I dislike when documentary work attempts to get viewers to “realise” the scale of something, only to then use an equally absurd example. I don’t know what 200 elephants worth of weight feels like, because I don't know what one elephant’s worth of weight feels like. While it is fascinating to know that the Mariana Trench could fit 7 stacked Eiffel Towers, it doesnt give an intimate understanding of scale. This is why I like using a bed, because it is something that people intimately understand the dimensions of. We estimate Giant Squid to average at a length of 12m (40ft). I could sleep on its 2-2.5 meter long mantle. Its tentacles, comprising the longest appendages of its body, stretch on for another 7-9 meters. Cephalopod arms and tentacles are a special type of appendage referred to in the sciences as a “muscular hydrostat”, a strange biomechanical structure able to perform muscle action via hydraulics, without the support of a skeleton. You currently (hopefully) have one in your mouth. Excluding Nautiloids, cephalopods varyingly have 8-10 of them affixed around their mouth, and the Giant Squid possesses the longest in terms of length, though I believe the title of “worlds longest tentacle to body ratio” is held by the aptly named Long-Arm Squid (Chiroteuthis veranyi).

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

The intrigue of the vampire squid doesn’t just lie in its evocative name or the eerie associations we impose on it. When we take its adaptation and feeding method in comparison to the larger squid species, such as the giant (Architeuthis Dux) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). We bridge the gap between the imagined horror of the cultural “vampire” image that we impose as viewers, and the real, visceral horror that lies in the primordial barbarity of life endemic to the deep oceans. While the vampire squid thrive by scavenging the drift of ‘marine snow’, a quiet and unassuming existence, the giant and colossal squids showcase a more direct approach to survival as active predators. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Over time cephalopods evolved into the distinct taxonomic groups of Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautiloids that we know today, with a few interesting taxonomic outliers that evaded comfortable classification such as Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the “Vampire Squid from Hell”. In terms of morphology (and I guess linguistics), squids are classified as decapodiforme (ten-armed) organisms with eight arms, two tentacles and then the classic soft body and accompanying mantle. Octopus follow that definition but omit the tentacles. Vampire squids evolved interestingly where they took the eight-armed body of the Octopus but traded the two tentacles present on most squids for two long strands of filament. Rather than trapping live prey with suckered tentacles, the Vampire Squid prefers instead to dine upon the eloquently named “Marine Snow” that drifts down through the Twilight Zone, collecting it on two lines of filament with radiating cilia that conveyor the detritus towards its mouth. 

Vampire Squids are an interesting organism, I think for a number of reasons. From a taxonomic perspective they're quite fascinating because they exist in their own distinct evolutionary space and from a more romanticised perspective they fascinate aesthetically. Being this shifting, strange creature cloaked in deep velvet red that inhabits a place where scarce life can live, feasting on the dredge of corpses that shifts down on them through the depth, they exemplify the otherworldly nature of the deep ocean in a way I find quite charming. In the below gif we can see the Vampire Squid engage in a defensive tactic, wrapping itself in its webbing and projecting its cirri out as though they were spines.

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

This evolutionary arms race brings us to the subject of today: Squids. However, before I can tell you about one of the most fascinatingly evolved species we share a planet with, I have to tell you about the tiny little ancestor they came from. It is small and diminutive, crawling across the sea floor with its foot like a piece of sentient gum. It’s name is Tannuella, and it carries a shell on its back to protect it from predators.

Over time, its shell becomes a long cone as it lifts off the sea-floor, carried by the water-column, the chambered shell itself filling with gas to aid in buoyancy. It becomes accustomed to operating on a three dimensional plane. The foot, originally used for movement, evolves to manipulate objects, splitting itself into arms lined with suction cups. It evolves syphons, cycling water through its mantle, affording it movement via jet-propulsion. The diminutive, limpet-like Tannuella capitalised (over a long evolutionary period) on the emergence of complex bodies and predation. It had become an estimatedly 18ft long behemoth of the deep, a predatory powerhouse given the name Cameroceras, the Giant Orthicone. 

[cee-sees-the-sea]

Imagine yourself submerged in the prehistoric ocean. There are no fish, instead the only life forms consist of feather-like sessile organisms that sit on the seabed, filtering the current. The early organisms that evolved out of this, such as Jellyfish and Starfish, had radial anatomy. Their body structure entails a central axis from which you can split everything else. These bodies are simple, not designed for active mobility, lacking a ‘forwards’ or ‘backwards’. They didn’t even have eyes, instead interacting with and responding to the world via photoreceptive cells. What emerged from this were two developments: the evolution of complex eyes and the emergence of bilateral anatomy in early vertebrates and arthropods. In contrast to radial anatomy, bilateral anatomy entails an organism that can be split down the middle with rough symmetry. This is to say that they are built for direction. A body that is built for mobility entails significantly more complex behaviour behind its operation. Behaviour, in this sense, also becomes significantly more directed. These creatures now living in the ocean or on the sea-floor now begin to directly interact with one another. The mechanisms facilitating this interaction become pretty apparent in the fossil record; eyes, claws and antennae. The evolutionary consequences of this are the emergence of a complex nervous system alongside the presence of predation and, as Godfrey-Smith puts it “[From this point on] The mind evolved in response to other minds”. 

[shitpostingkats]

I love you robots and artificial intelligence with mental illness. I love you repression being depicted as literally deleting archived data to preserve functionality. I love you anxiety attacks being depicted as a system crashing virus. I love you ptsd being depicted as an annoying pop-up. I love you anxiety disorder being depicted as running thousands of simulations and projected outcomes. I love you artificial beings being shown to be human via their own artificiality.

[wtf-scientific-papers]

[A shot in the dark: same-sex sexual behaviour in a deep-sea squid]

Hoving et al., 2012

[astraldemise]

hate HATE so called educational biology videos that are like "look at this ugly animal. isnt it disgusting ? dont you want to throw up while looking at it ? isnt it so yucky disgusting" arent you supposed to appreciate wildlife and educate people on them ? what do people learn from this. like if a person goes to watch your video on flatworms and thinks theyre ugly little things that should be killed then what are you doing but reinforcing their belief. thats not educating them. i dont care if being all "haha kill it with fire im so quirky" gets you more views. you just kind of suck. also i spoke to the flatworms and none of them even knew you.

[astraldemise]

people do have some biases when it comes to animals that arent cute fluffy mammals. they think theyre gross or ugly. if you want to educate people about animals then you shouldnt play into these notions. you should educate people about the animal. why it looks the way it does and what purpose its features serve and what role it plays in its ecosystem. understanding things makes them less scary. people who watch you video should come away with a better understanding of the animal and not a confirmation of their belief that it doesnt deserve to be alive.

[spiderdaynightlive]

this is a huge issue in animal/nature/wildlife content! it's most obvious in those ^ sorts of cases, where the tone of the show is blatantly against the animal, but biases against invertebrates are so deeply engrained in our culture (NOT genetics, btw, at least not for spiders (which is the research I'm familiar with)) that even places like museums and zoos will use scary/negative words to advertise and otherwise talk about their animals.

like, how many times have you seen a zoo exhibit on bugs with a slogan like "creepy crawlies"? even if the rest of the text is neutral, you're basically priming people to expect something "creepy" before they even see the animal, and since most people already have that impression of the animal, you're just reinforcing negative biases!!

[eddieintheocean]

born to

forced to

[captaincrungus]

happy hagfish day i love these slimy wet beasts