#and squid facts

[squidsinashirt]

Too much on your mind? Chat with a friend.

Met this big guy earlier while out on a solo evening dive while procrastinating doing physio.

Not much for conversation but he’s a good listener! It’s hard to chat around a rebreather anyway.

Shark facts with Gords - he’s a whale shark! 🦈 Biggest guys on the planet, but they only grow 20-30cm a year. This guy was still just a teenager. 3000 tiny teeth. Endangered but making a come back! They can live to over a hundred! 💪🏻😍

[sarahmackattack]

One last talent show to save the rec center

Ok everybody here's the deal.

My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.

Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.

You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.

Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[maiumeni]

season 3 finale leaks

Welcome back Hannigram

[gammafish]

squid game is fantastic and horrific and a profound exploration of human nature but i can't lie, one of my fav parts of s2 is how Inho looks at Gihun tbh sorry

[amnhnyc]

Need a tiny cephalopod to brighten your day? Meet the bobtail squid (Euprymna berryi)! Also known as the hummingbird squid, this critter typically grows only up to 2 in (5 cm) in length; females are larger than males. This species lives in Indo-Pacific waters, inhabiting the ocean floor where it burrows beneath sand to rest or hide when under threat. Its striking color comes from chromatophores, or pigment-holding cells, distributed throughout its body.

Photo:maractwin, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, iNaturalist

[stalebagels]

Speak for yourself fandomwire. You cowards. I will ride or die for this purple haired bitch

[boyblundering]

based off a real life experience (i was tim) (it was my biology project) (my boyfriend had to listen to me spew squid facts)

[mrkdrama]

Squid Game S02 [ 오징어게임 ] (2024) — Wi Ha Joon as Hwang Jun Ho | dir. Hwang Dong Hyuk

[themagictophat]

Found this with no context on my phone

Just "photo taken on April 19, 2022 at 8:22 PM." No clues from any of the surrounding pictures. The previous one is me documenting the existence of my grandfather's stuffed pheasant before we get rid of it when we move and the one after it is a 13 second clip of me dumping a bag down our apartment's trash-chute and listening to it fall down all eight floors into the basement.

So I text the number and...

IT WORKED I GOT A SQUID FACT

This made my 3-in-the-morning, thank you Squid Fact Hotline, I didn't actually know that second fact about how tiny pygmy squids are.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: vampire squid

It's squidtember, everybody! To celebrate, we'll discuss the vampire squid, which is... not actually a squid. It's not a vampire either. I'll let you decide which is more disappointing. No, the vampire squid isn't a squid or an octopus or even a cuttlefish, it's its own thing, the only surviving member of order Vampyromorphida, a sister group of the octopi. Let's dig into this unique cephalopod.

(Image: a vampire squid. It is an octopus-like animal a dark red in color with large eyes and a pair of fins on the mantle. The arms are relatively short and are held together. End ID)

The scientific name of the vampire squid is Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which means "vampire squid from hell". With a name like that you'd expect it to be a badass predator, but it isn't. The name comes from its red color and arm membranes that are visually similar to a cape. They're also on the small side, maxing out at around 30 cm (about 1 foot), half of which is the body and the other half being the arms. The body is mostly a dark red color. Its body plan is similar to an octopus, with eight arms. On the body is a pair of fins and while the skin is covered in bioluminescent cells called photophores, they lack the color-changing chromatophores that allow octopi, squid, and cuttlefish to change their color so radically. The eye of the vampire squid is the largest in proportion to body size of any animal and the vampire squid likely has very good vision. The vampire squid has an internal shell called a gladius that is common to cephalopods but has been lost in octopi. The galdius helps maintain buoyancy, aided by a high concentration of ammonia in the body and inner ear-like organs called statocysts.

(Image: a vampire squid with its arms extended, revealing that they are connected to each other by a membrane that reaches almost to the tips of the arms. End ID)

The arms are connected to each other by a membrane called a cloak. The inner sides of the arms are line with fleshy cirri and only have suckers at the very tips. In between the base of the arms is the beak. Also within the cloak are a pair of pouches that contain the tactile velar filaments (side note: why the fuck does Tumblr's spell check recognize velar but not cephalopod?). The filaments are very long, very slender modified arms that are covered with sensory hairs. The filaments retract back into their pouches when not in use. The filaments are used in feeding similarly to the tentacles of squid, but they are not derived from the same feature. The common ancestor of octopi and vampyromorphids had 10 arms. The octopi eventually lost a pair while the vampyromorphids modified a pair into the filaments.

(Image: a vampire squid with one of its filaments extended from within the arms. The filament looks like a long string that is hanging in the water. End ID)

The vampire squid is found worldwide in tropical and temperate latitudes at depths within the midnight zone, where no light reaches. They are extremophiles, organisms that live in extreme environments. This isn't because of being deep-sea organisms, but because of the particular part of the deep sea they are specialized to live in. Vampire squids live in oxygen minimum zones, regions of the deep sea that have drastically lower levels of dissolved oxygen that the surrounding area. Because oxygen is necessary for most life, oxygen minimum zones are very sparsely populated. To survive in such a low-oxygen environment, vampire squids have developed a very low metabolic rate (the lowest of all deep-sea cephalopods) and have very large gills. This allows them to extract every possible bit of oxygen from the water and let it last for a long time. The squid spend their time slowly swimming using their fins for propulsion, keeping movement to a minimum to reduce oxygen use. Food is scarce in the oxygen minimum zones and the vampire squids have adopted a low-energy feeding method. The eyes and velar filaments search through the water for bits of food, which the arms catch. The squid uses a mix of mucus and bodily waste excreted from the suckers to encase the food, forming a lovely mucus dumpling that the squid eats. The bioluminescence may also be used to attract prey. A vampire squid's diet consists largely of marine snow, bits of organic matter that falls from above. Marine snow largely consists of bits of dead animals, but a lot of it is also feces. The vampire squid form hell eats poop. Vampoo-er squid. It also eats zooplankton and maybe small fish, but that's less scandalous

(Image: a vampire squid showing off the inside of its cloak. Each arm is lined with fleshy protrusions called cirri. At the center of the arms in a lump of flesh covering the beak. End ID)

Vampire squids can't afford to spend energy on fighting predators, so they have adapted some unique defense mechanisms. The red coloration is one of these. Red light is the first wavelength of visible light to be filtered out in water and as a result, many deep-sea animals can't see red light. To them, a vampire squid would seem invisible. The first defense mechanism vampire squids use is the pineapple pose, where they wrap their arms and cloak around their bodies to look like a spiky ball. If that doesn't deter predators, the squid can release sticky, glowing mucus from its suckers. This mucus can disorient the predator and will stick to it, making it vulnerable to predators of its own. While making an escape, the squid will use its bioluminescence to disorient the predator, especially flailing its glowing arms to create a very confusing sight. It can regrow the ends of its arms, making them an acceptable sacrifice if it means surviving the encounter.

(Image: a vampire squid in the pineapple pose. Its arms and cloak are covering its body, exposing the cirri. This makes it look like a round object lined with rows of spines. End ID)

Like its octopus relatives, the vampire squid reproduces via the male inserting a packet of sperm into a hole in the female's mantle. The female can store the sperm for long periods of time until she is ready to use it. They may also be able to use only part of the sperm supply at a time while reserving the rest. While squid, cuttlefish, and octopi only mate once before dying, vampire squid appear to mate multiple times in their lives. Eggs may take over a year to hatch and the juveniles are born as 8-mm miniature versions of the adults. The juveniles live in deeper water than the adults and survive on an internal yolk sac for some time after hatching. Curiously, the juveniles are born with a single pair of fins, then grow another pair as they mature. Eventually the original pair of fins is lost and the new pair will chance shape and placement during maturation. This has led to vampire squids of different development stages being misidentified as different species in the past.

(Image: a juvenile vampire squid. It's arms are shorter and it has two pairs of fins. End ID)

Vampire squid are classified as data deficient by the IUCN, meaning there is not enough data to determine what conservation needs they have. Their worldwide distribution indicates they are likely not at risk of extinction. They are believed to be vulnerable to microplastics, which drift downward like marine snow and are very likely to be mistaken for food by the squid. Microplastics can carry chemical loads that could be poisonous to the squid and can obstruct the digestive tract or trick the animal into thinking it is well-fed when it is actually full of indigestible plastic. Vampire squid are known to be prey to large fish and deep-diving marine mammal like toothed whales or seals. The vampire squid was discovered by the Valdivia Expedition of 1898-99 and was one of the animals caught that helped disprove a then-accepted hypothesis that the deep sea was lifeless. The azoic hypothesis or abyssus theory stated that ocean life diminished with depth and that, by extrapolating the existing numbers, the ocean would be lifeless below about 300 fathoms (550 m, 1,800 ft). The vampire squid was one of the earliest examples of animals captured from below that depth.

(Image: a vampire squid with its arms and cloak extended. End ID)

[wspider-man]

WHO WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT WEIRD SEA ANIMALS???

1.) Sea Angels

They look like angels but they are predators. They’re a type of sea slug and the muscle that’s common in Gastropods was modified to help them adapt to swimming! They’re also pretty small ranging from 1.2-8.5 centimeters. Their translucent because they are very deep in the sea and the pigmentation found in animals on earth and in the higher waters is just used to protect them from UV rays. But since Sea angels are so deep in the ocean, the sun isn’t visible to them meaning they don’t need pigmentation. That goes for a lot of deep sea animals. They also glow!

2.) Vampire Squid

So Vampire Squids are called vampires because they are so bony and are a deep red color that led to people thinking they suck blood. But they are actually detritivores! This means they eat dead organic matter so they are not as scary as people make them out to be. They have the largest eyes to body ratio of any animal! Vampire Squids are cephalopods, meaning they should have the muscles to change colors, but they don’t! They’re so cool, I love them!

3.) Barreleye Fish

Man are these things fugly, but in a cute way! Like Sea Angels, Barreleye Fish have a translucent head! The strange thing though is that’s it eyes are inside of it. They seems to be humongous but that because, like the Vampire Squid, they live in the deep deep ocean where it’s dark. They need the largest eyes possible to take in the most light! As scary as they look, they only get up to six inches so you have nothing to worry about. (You wouldn’t be that deep in the ocean anyway😒)

Guys if anyone actually enjoys this stuff please tell me cause I would love to make more! These are so fun and I love animals! Especially marine ones. So yeah!🤭

[sarahmackattack]

From the people who brought you Squid Facts, Horseshoe Crab is Calling

I don't know about you, but I need a little joy right now. Earlier this month, I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and I came upon this:

I was like "Wow. Ok. Yes I AM picking that up." I couldn't resist! What an enticing strategy!

I had to try it myself.

After kicking the idea around with a few friends, I landed on "Horseshoe Crab is calling", and we updated to the modern iOS. Maybe i should have kept the green and red, I'm not sure.

Who the hell wouldn't be intrigued by this?!

(P.S. shout out to Basic Barbie, another street artist in the city who is unapologetically femme in a predominantly male scene. We love Basic Barbie.)

The link on the bottom goes to a list of actionable things people can do to slow climate change. Very curious to see how many people visit the page.

If you would like the print file so you can get business cards printed yourself to pepper around your natural habitat, DM me. Happy to share.

[protectoursharks]

can you do one about vampire squids ? 🦑

Vampyroteuthis infernalis or Vampire Squid

It's (very dramatic) scientific name means "vampire squid from hell". However, the vampire squid is not actually a squid! It's actually the only animal in the Vampyroteuthidae family! It's separated into its own family because it can't change color or produce ink. Instead, it turns itself "inside out" (as shown above) to deter predators.

Proportionally, vampire squids also have the largest eyes compared to their body size! They eat mostly zooplankton, marine snow, and other organisms waste. They grow to be about the size of a football and live to be around 8 years old.

There's even evidence that vampire squids have been around since the Jurassic period- almost 200 million years ago!

[creamecafe]

THE SMILE AND HAIR. LET ME OUT

Credits: haedcls

[lakesparkles]

More of my Squid Game animal designs!!

These were sooo hard to do and I might redesign them later. But I do love how Mi-na looks