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Speaker 3: Heyologites, what's up it to me? It's Ali Ward, here
Speaker 3: we are. It's finally time. It's the moment you've been
Speaker 3: waiting months for a Cephala podcast. Oh okay. Toothology comes
Speaker 3: from tooth, which is Greek for cuttlefish or squid. What's
Speaker 3: a cephalopod mean? Well, that comes from cephala, which means
Speaker 3: head and pod feet because they essentially look like a giant,
Speaker 3: long brain with a mop of feet glued on. So
Speaker 3: this week's episode sawba squid and squids and squids and
Speaker 3: octopuses and cuttlefish. They are adorable, shape shifting, possibly alien,
Speaker 3: creepy alive cartoons. I love them even more after recording
Speaker 3: this I would hug every one of them if I could,
Speaker 3: But first I want to say thank you and give
Speaker 3: you all an audio hug. To everyone who's bought merch
Speaker 3: at ologiesmarch dot com there's pins and hats and all
Speaker 3: kinds of things and totes. And to all of the
Speaker 3: folks supporting for even twenty five cents in an episode on
Speaker 3: Patreon dot com slash ologies. That gets you some exclusive content,
Speaker 3: it gets my undying affection, and also your questions go
Speaker 3: to the front of the line to theologists. Thank you
Speaker 3: for supporting the show. Also, you can give back for
Speaker 3: no money, zero dollars, just a little bit of effort
Speaker 3: when you rate and review and subscribe. That keeps ologies
Speaker 3: up in the iTunes charts, so more people see it
Speaker 3: and say, what's this shit and then listen to it,
Speaker 3: and then there are more of us out there to
Speaker 3: delight in primate butts and laughter, science, etc. So I
Speaker 3: read each and every review weeks. I creep on them
Speaker 3: so hard.
Speaker 4: They mean so much to me.
Speaker 3: Just the fact that I get to make this podcast
Speaker 3: and you guys listen is like page CWS says, fantastic podcast.
Speaker 3: I recently had a dream that I was an uber
Speaker 3: driver roll around, I'm listening to ologies. I stopped and
Speaker 3: ali Ward got in my car.
Speaker 5: I got really.
Speaker 3: Embarrassed, and her show was streaming while she was in
Speaker 3: the car, so I tried to slightly change it without
Speaker 3: her noticing. I just want to let Peage know that
Speaker 3: that wasn't a dream. What if we actually did that
Speaker 3: in another astral plane? Anyway, thanks for the reviews.
Speaker 4: Okay, back to squid. Who squid?
Speaker 3: They look like swim and dicks with parrot beaks and
Speaker 3: they are alive invisibility cloaks.
Speaker 4: But are they aliens?
Speaker 3: How do they change color?
Speaker 4: Can they kill you? What's a kraken?
Speaker 3: I very excitedly met with a squid scientist that I've
Speaker 3: been fawning over on Twitter for months after a post
Speaker 3: of hers about squid went viral. What happened was multiple
Speaker 3: Jabbronis tried to tell her that her squid were cuttlefish,
Speaker 3: and she's like, n I'm a squid scientist, there's quid.
Speaker 3: So I've become a huge fangirl of her general knowledge
Speaker 3: and passion about squids, so much that I took a
Speaker 3: train two hours from New York to Connecticut and back
Speaker 3: in one day just to spend an hour with her.
Speaker 3: She picked me up from the train station and told
Speaker 3: me i'd recognize her car because it had her Twitter
Speaker 3: handle and email plus the words.
Speaker 4: Ever wonder about squid?
Speaker 3: Ask me anything octopus two written on the back window.
Speaker 3: Her license plate reads simply squids. It's thirty nine degrees.
Speaker 3: I can see my breath. I'm outside new Haven, Connecticut.
Speaker 3: First time in Connecticut. I'm looking for a squid car.
Speaker 3: I'm so nervous. I've been trying to be her friend,
Speaker 3: so hardcore for months online.
Speaker 4: What if she doesn't like me? Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 4: think I see her. This is so exciting.
Speaker 5: Squids.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: Hi, Oh my gosh, it's meeting Hi. I'm getting in
Speaker 5: your car.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Your life's might really sesselate. We drove around New Haven
Speaker 4: a little.
Speaker 3: She's a PhD candidate and scientist at University of Connecticut,
Speaker 3: and found a library basement to record in and we
Speaker 3: talked about iridescent bioluminescent sea creatures and crafty cuttlefish cross
Speaker 3: dressing octopus brains. They're shaped so weird again, Alien DNA
Speaker 3: weird dating stories both human our own and stephalopod related
Speaker 3: and what happens when you blindfold a cuttlefish. So please
Speaker 3: get ready to become obsessed with quite possibly the world's
Speaker 3: most charming and impassioned squid nerd pathologist Sarah McAnulty. Do
Speaker 3: you know that I, for some reason, every time I
Speaker 3: want to say your name, I want to say McNulty.
Speaker 5: Most people do. Yeah, why do I do that? I
Speaker 5: don't know phonetics, Irish phonetics make no sense.
Speaker 3: Okay, you are a toothologist.
Speaker 6: I'm a touthologist. Yes, so glad you know that word. Yeah, teuthologist.
Speaker 3: Do people do you ever say that? Or do you
Speaker 3: ever drop that? Cash?
Speaker 6: No one knows what I'm talking about. One time someone
Speaker 6: asked me if I was a touthologist, and again I
Speaker 6: got very excited, but it barely comes up normally. I
Speaker 6: just say I'm a squid biologist.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: You're kind of boned by phonetics because it sounds like
Speaker 3: you're an orthodonist.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it does sound like you study teeth, and squid
Speaker 6: don't even have teeth, so the poor things.
Speaker 5: They just have beaks. So yeah, we're hose there.
Speaker 3: So you are a squid scientist. Yes, how long you've
Speaker 3: been into squid.
Speaker 6: So I have been interested in squid since I was
Speaker 6: a little kid, but I started actually working with stephalopods
Speaker 6: when I was in Right after my sophomore year of college,
Speaker 6: I found out about this lab in Woodshole in Massachusetts
Speaker 6: that was working on cuttlefish camouflage and I thought that
Speaker 6: was like so insane that you could have a career
Speaker 6: working on the coolest animal there is. So I like
Speaker 6: basically followed the scientist around to places that I knew
Speaker 6: who was giving talks and I was.
Speaker 5: Like, Hi, I'm Sarah. Please let me work for you.
Speaker 6: And he was like you're too young, and I was
Speaker 6: like please, though I would really like to work for you.
Speaker 3: Sarah sent the lab a very passionate letter where she
Speaker 3: basically said, look, if you don't hire me this year,
Speaker 3: you're just gonna hear from me next year and the
Speaker 3: year after that.
Speaker 5: And he was like okay, crazy and gave me an internship.
Speaker 3: Sarah has worked with cephalopods ever since octopuses OCTOPI more
Speaker 3: on that later in college, and now she works with
Speaker 3: little credits called bobtail squid, which are an evolutionary in
Speaker 3: between octopuses and cuttlefish. Bobtail squid are little, they have
Speaker 3: a shorter, rounded mantle, and they can be these beautiful
Speaker 3: iridescent collars. They're also called dumpling squid or stubby squid
Speaker 3: because of their shape, and the general consensus is that
Speaker 3: they are the cutest things on planet Earth. So I'm sorry, slots,
Speaker 3: you've been replaced. Super side note, if you look at
Speaker 3: a photo of a bobtail squid and simply cannot even
Speaker 3: or you need to scream or punch yourself in the face,
Speaker 3: this is something that Yale researchers have dubbed cute aggression.
Speaker 3: One hypothesis is that the brain simply cannot deal with
Speaker 3: that much positive stimulation at once and turn some of
Speaker 3: it into the opposite, just some negative emotion, which for
Speaker 3: most people ends up being aggression or screaming or squealing
Speaker 3: or slapping themselves. So google bobtail squid and then bury
Speaker 3: your face into a couch cushion and shriek with abandon.
Speaker 3: It's fine, it's okay, it'll be helpful. What's the timeline
Speaker 3: between octopus and squid and bobtail squid? I know that's
Speaker 3: a stupid, stupid question, but like, what did one come
Speaker 3: first and then another? What happened.
Speaker 6: So, okay, first we had like amanites, and those are
Speaker 6: those things that look like Nautilus's, those like spiral shells,
Speaker 6: I think a common ancestor of those, we had bellamites,
Speaker 6: and those are basically squid with shells like long, skinny
Speaker 6: cone shells. And then they brought the shells inside their
Speaker 6: body instead of outside their body, and then they most
Speaker 6: of them lost the shells completely and some keep them inside.
Speaker 6: So there's like squid, like the kind of squid that
Speaker 6: you eat, and calamari still has something called a pen,
Speaker 6: which is like a clear, bendy.
Speaker 5: Version of a shell.
Speaker 6: And cuttlefish have cuttlebones, which are these actually birds eat
Speaker 6: them for like calcium, but they have they're like little
Speaker 6: buoyancy devices right in the back of the animal. And
Speaker 6: then our bobtail squid have absolutely nothing at all. But yeah,
Speaker 6: so octopuses diverge from squid and cuttlefish a long time ago,
Speaker 6: I don't remember exactly how many millions of years ago,
Speaker 6: So they're off on their own branch with vampire squid,
Speaker 6: which are not either. They're more like octopuses than squid.
Speaker 5: What is a vampire squid? Vampire squid are dope.
Speaker 6: So vampire squid are these deep sea cephalopods that look
Speaker 6: kind of like a Dumbo octopus if you've seen those,
Speaker 6: But they're dark maroon red and at each at the
Speaker 6: end of each of their arms, they have a little
Speaker 6: organ that has biluminescence, so each of the tips of
Speaker 6: their arms are biluminescent, and then they have these big
Speaker 6: spots on either side of their head. They are biluminescent
Speaker 6: to give the impression that they have huge eyes to
Speaker 6: make other animals think they're way bigger than they actually are.
Speaker 3: Okay, I just look these things up. Who boy, they're
Speaker 3: this deep crimson color, and their arms are more webbed,
Speaker 3: kind of like a bloody umbrella with a head. And
Speaker 3: their Latin genus and species name is vampirate toothist infernalis,
Speaker 3: and it translates to something that sounds like a title
Speaker 3: to a grindhouse film, Vampire squid from Hell. That is
Speaker 3: what their Latin name means, vampire squid from Hell. Do
Speaker 3: they have knives and lengthy rap sheets of criminal offenses?
Speaker 3: Not so much.
Speaker 6: And they are non violent little animals that basically just
Speaker 6: eat dead shit that falls from them above because they
Speaker 6: live so deep that when things die above, it just
Speaker 6: sinks down.
Speaker 5: That's called marine snow.
Speaker 6: And they oh god, which is quite a euphemism, is disgusting.
Speaker 5: It's just like dead stuff.
Speaker 3: And they're just calling the vampire squids because they're maroon.
Speaker 6: They look really scary, so like each of their arms
Speaker 6: has these little spikes sticking off of it, so they
Speaker 6: look really intimidating. You would think I wouldn't want to
Speaker 6: run into one of those, But they're just eating dead
Speaker 6: stuff and floating around, so it's.
Speaker 5: Not too bad. I think it's more they got more
Speaker 5: bark and bite.
Speaker 3: There's when you talk about marine snow, there's pooh in
Speaker 3: there too, right.
Speaker 5: Oh totally okay, ye, okay, why squid?
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously squid are the coolest, but like what
Speaker 3: illuminated you to how cool squid were?
Speaker 6: So when I was when I first realized that squid
Speaker 6: were awesome, I was about eight and I was watching
Speaker 6: this natural geographic like video.
Speaker 5: That I got from the library.
Speaker 3: It was all about the ocean fish, coral reefs, reeves, reefs,
Speaker 3: not sure, dolphins and what have you.
Speaker 6: But there was segment about halfway through where they play
Speaker 6: twilight Zone music and then they introduce the cuttlefish, and
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 5: Just like, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 7: You are entering another dimension, a watery world between time
Speaker 7: and space, where strange creatures whose bizarre pounds the alien zone, and.
Speaker 5: I was like, I need to know more about that animal.
Speaker 6: So in the video, it's doing this like passing cloud maneuver.
Speaker 6: So cuttlefish can change color as quickly as they think
Speaker 6: about it, because each little color changing cell is controlled
Speaker 6: by neurons, so it's as if you think it, you
Speaker 6: can change, which is really cool. So they're called chromatophores,
Speaker 6: and these little sacks of pigment, little circles spheres of
Speaker 6: pigment that are surrounded by little cellular muscles that can
Speaker 6: stretch the pigment out like a pancake and then let
Speaker 6: it release and go back to a little teeny tiny
Speaker 6: beach ball.
Speaker 5: So they can turn these on in pattern. So I
Speaker 5: saw that and was like this is bananas. And yeah.
Speaker 6: So I had been into dinosaurs, but then I switched
Speaker 6: over to sephal pods pretty much right then and there,
Speaker 6: and I checked that video out all the time.
Speaker 3: You're like, sorry, dinos, sorry, yeah, we don't even know
Speaker 3: what color you were, let alone, if you could change
Speaker 3: like an LED screen like that nat Geo video which
Speaker 3: Sarah posted on her tumblr, Squid Scientistas dot tumbler dot com,
Speaker 3: shows cuttlefish flitting about doing what's called dynamic displays, so
Speaker 3: they're blinking and changing colors. There's like bands of black
Speaker 3: flashing over their body, like if clouds were overhead zooming
Speaker 3: past you and through bands of shadow across you, so
Speaker 3: it looks like hypnotic and it confuses their prey. It's bananas.
Speaker 3: They're like living squishy disco lights. I get why this
Speaker 3: video was life changing. When you're obsessed with squid, I
Speaker 3: think that makes other people obsessed with your obsession with squid.
Speaker 4: That makes sense.
Speaker 5: That makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when people are kind of obsessed with cephalopods, do
Speaker 3: you think it's their huge brains or their dexterity or
Speaker 3: their instant camouflage if people are drawn to.
Speaker 5: It's probably different for everybody.
Speaker 6: But I think one thing that's really drawing and interesting
Speaker 6: about cephalopods is that they're really complex animals that diverge
Speaker 6: so long ago from us that they've come up with
Speaker 6: all these really wacky cool ways to get around the
Speaker 6: same problems that any other organism has to get around,
Speaker 6: but in a super different way, Like you know, camouflage
Speaker 6: is the most crazy different one.
Speaker 5: But nuts.
Speaker 3: I mean, I believe you watch videos and you're like.
Speaker 5: Are so fast it's crazy.
Speaker 3: Are we ever going to develop technology to like give
Speaker 3: us invisibility cloaks in case we see like someone we
Speaker 3: don't want to see at Costco or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: One thing that is really really hard to figure out
Speaker 6: is how cephalopods look at their environment and then pick
Speaker 6: what to do. Because it's not as though they're saying, okay,
Speaker 6: I bet I could do a pretty good rendition of that.
Speaker 6: They take the whole like environment, and then they kind
Speaker 6: of like say, okay, I bet this would fit. It's
Speaker 6: like looking for a new piece of furniture in a room,
Speaker 6: not to match what you've got, but to kind of
Speaker 6: go with the flow of the room.
Speaker 5: But there are scientists.
Speaker 6: Working on that in Woodsholl, in that lab that I
Speaker 6: used to work for, understanding what cues they're using from
Speaker 6: the environment to pick what to look like.
Speaker 3: And getting back to that stretching the pigments out like
Speaker 3: a pancake and then smushing them like a beach ball.
Speaker 3: Does that change the way that the light reflects on
Speaker 3: the pigment or how does that change the color?
Speaker 6: So ink? Okay, So we've got multiple layers of cephalopod skin.
Speaker 6: On the bottom base layer for some cephalopods like cuddlefish,
Speaker 6: there's this really really white cell type called lucafors, and
Speaker 6: these cells never change color. It's just whatever color you
Speaker 6: shoot at them is the color that they give back
Speaker 6: to you. And it's like the purest white in the
Speaker 6: animal kingdom. So there are grants working to study this
Speaker 6: to make e readers better so that the back of
Speaker 6: the page is the whitest version. Your eyes have more
Speaker 6: pigment or more contrast to pick up on words, which
Speaker 6: is cool.
Speaker 5: Okay. So that's that's base.
Speaker 6: And then above that we have a ritiphores, and our
Speaker 6: ritifhors really are the ones that change color, but they
Speaker 6: change color the slowest, so they can go from like
Speaker 6: red to blue purple sort of.
Speaker 5: And those are changing hormonally, so they change.
Speaker 6: A lot slower, but they're the kind of sparkly urdescent cells.
Speaker 6: And then on top of those, those are where your
Speaker 6: chromatophors are, and chrematophors are one color all the time,
Speaker 6: but you have many different colors of chromatophors.
Speaker 5: All in your kind of palette.
Speaker 6: So there are like brown ones and yellow ones and
Speaker 6: reddish ones, so which they choose to turn on will
Speaker 6: determine the pattern that you see. So you're using all
Speaker 6: of these different cell types to amalgamate pattern.
Speaker 3: Is it like a like a TV screen or LED screen?
Speaker 4: Like is it similar to that?
Speaker 5: Or that would require me to understand how LEDs and
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: I tried to check to see if this TV screen
Speaker 3: analogy was whack. I was like, maybe that was embarrassing
Speaker 3: to say, And then I went down a rabbit hole
Speaker 3: of LCD liquid crystal display backlit by LED light emitting diodes,
Speaker 3: but also jumbotrons, which is actually a trademark name and
Speaker 3: Sony no longer makes them, but LED jumbotrons if those
Speaker 3: were like chromatophores, And then I found a published paper
Speaker 3: called Dynamic Skin Patterns in Cephalopods published last year, which
Speaker 3: said in the opening graph quote with parallels to the
Speaker 3: pixels on a television screen, cephalopod chromatophores. So boom, I'm
Speaker 3: sticking with it, don't at me? Scientists agree? Now we
Speaker 3: have more important squid gossip to address. So I have
Speaker 3: two pieces of flim flamm I need you took on
Speaker 3: like straightaway. I had an amazing doctor Christacker on icheologist,
Speaker 3: and she told me that giant squid live.
Speaker 4: Like five years.
Speaker 5: Is that true? That squid have really lifespans?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, so some squid leap live even shorter lifespans
Speaker 6: than that. So our bobtail squid, we think, live about
Speaker 6: nine months in the wild, so really short. And then
Speaker 6: we think at the long end of things is like
Speaker 6: about five years.
Speaker 3: If they could live to one hundred years, would they
Speaker 3: take over the world?
Speaker 4: Would we be screwed?
Speaker 5: One would have to assume yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other flip flam I have to debunk is our
Speaker 3: octopus and squid possibly alien DNA and that's why they're
Speaker 3: so cool.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about that one. So yeah, no, cephalopods are
Speaker 5: not aliens. So here's what happened. So the octopus genome
Speaker 5: came out and there's a lot of weird cool stuff
Speaker 5: in that genome, and they were saying, Okay, there's all this.
Speaker 6: Weird stuff going on, like it's wait, really different, it's
Speaker 6: like it's an alien, they said casually to a journalist,
Speaker 6: And then journalists, cephalopods are aliens.
Speaker 5: We're like a shit good. No it's not. We're saying
Speaker 5: like alien like squid did not come from space.
Speaker 3: So talk to me a little bit about your work
Speaker 3: with bacteria interactions. I know you work with bobtail squid,
Speaker 3: which are these cute, cute little guys, and you study
Speaker 3: bioluminescent bacteria that lives on their underside.
Speaker 6: Right, So the bobtail squid has this like symbiosis with
Speaker 6: the bacterium.
Speaker 5: Right, it's bioluminescent. It's called Vibrio fischeri.
Speaker 6: So they have this organ that is appropriately called a
Speaker 6: light organ and that's where the bacteria live.
Speaker 5: It's really cool. Yeah, what a rig.
Speaker 6: It's an evolutionary like I just shouldn't use the word
Speaker 6: mind fuck, but it's evolutionarily really really complex and cool.
Speaker 3: So bobtail squid have these two little crips where they
Speaker 3: house one species, one single species of bioluminescent bacteria, like
Speaker 3: a bunch of glowing purse chihuahuas, but the purse is
Speaker 3: your skin and the chihuahuas help you live. Now, because
Speaker 3: it's just one species of bacteria that they have this
Speaker 3: relationship with, it's way easier to study and isolate than
Speaker 3: a microbiome with a bunch of different species, and in
Speaker 3: Sarah's lab they're looking at the communication between animal and
Speaker 3: the bacterium and how the immune cells influence it, like
Speaker 3: how they recognize their so called good bacteria. So remember
Speaker 3: the glycobiology episode with Michelle d'acua where cells use carbohydrate
Speaker 3: flags to kind of check each other out.
Speaker 6: And we think it's sort of like when the immune
Speaker 6: cell and the bacterium first stick to each other, the
Speaker 6: immune cells kind of like asking the bacterium a couple questions, like, Okay,
Speaker 6: when it comes to lipple polysaccharide, what do you.
Speaker 5: Have going on? Okay?
Speaker 6: It looks like that, Okay, what do you have going
Speaker 6: on for this protein over here?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 6: And let me look at this one other thing on
Speaker 6: your surface. And with this information combined, I can identify
Speaker 6: who you are.
Speaker 3: Talk to me a little bit about bobtail squid because
Speaker 3: they do look like a hybrid between a squid and
Speaker 3: an octopus and a cuttlefish. Which is actually how I
Speaker 3: got to know and gently stock you is I saw
Speaker 3: I saw you tweeted this adorable photo of when you
Speaker 3: go check on your squids and like some of them
Speaker 3: are totally okay with the checkup, and others pretend to
Speaker 3: be rocks, and it was like one bbtail squid that
Speaker 3: was covered herself in rocks and was like, now let
Speaker 3: us see there, and and then some people tweeted back
Speaker 3: at you like.
Speaker 5: Pretty sure, you're pretty sure it's cuddlefish.
Speaker 3: And everyone's like a fuck off, she's a squid scientist.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this happens to me like maybe once a week
Speaker 6: that someone tries to tell me that my bobtail squid
Speaker 6: is a cuttlefish. That particular day I had like thirty
Speaker 6: people tell me my bobtail squid was a cuddlefish.
Speaker 5: But I've just like accepted.
Speaker 6: That this is going to be part of my life,
Speaker 6: like having men tell me that my squid is not
Speaker 6: my squid.
Speaker 5: And to be fair, like so, there are true squid.
Speaker 6: And like I keep calling them calamari squid, but like
Speaker 6: I think that's where you encounter them the most, like
Speaker 6: this long, skinny squid. So you know, when I just say, like,
Speaker 6: look at my squid doing something stupid, some people will
Speaker 6: be like, well, actually it's not a true squid, it's
Speaker 6: a you should really be using the term bobtail squid.
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, I guess I should. When I have
Speaker 5: this many followers and this many people like getting all
Speaker 5: up in my business, I guess I should always use
Speaker 5: bobtail squid.
Speaker 3: And they're definitely not cuttlefish.
Speaker 6: They're like just definitely not cuddlefish. So to be a cuddlefish,
Speaker 6: you need to have a cuddlebone. And the cuddlebone is
Speaker 6: that buoyant. A ragonite is what it's made of, kind
Speaker 6: of shell shocky thing. Yeah, and it helps them maintain
Speaker 6: neutral buoyancy, so they don't have to actually put an
Speaker 6: effort staying up.
Speaker 5: In the water. But in the water.
Speaker 3: Every time Sarah says water, I die, I die. I
Speaker 3: texted her afterwards to ask where she's from out of
Speaker 3: pure linguistic curiosity, and it's Philly.
Speaker 4: I love it so much.
Speaker 3: So this accent is called Philadelphia English. It's the proper
Speaker 3: name for it, and it's heavily influenced by immigrants from
Speaker 3: Northern Ireland and Scotland. So how you pronounce water is
Speaker 3: said to be like the defining characteristic of Philadelphia English.
Speaker 3: I find it so charming. So please, when you hear
Speaker 3: her say water, take a sip of your beverage. Rejoice
Speaker 3: it's so endearing. It's like sloth baby squid level cute. Okay,
Speaker 3: back to cuttle bones.
Speaker 6: And if you don't have that, you are not a cuttlefish.
Speaker 6: That's basic, like cuddlefish want to wa.
Speaker 3: So if anyone's out there that's like, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: I'm a cuttlefish.
Speaker 6: Like check yourself, check your back, like are you do
Speaker 6: you have diff and yeah, then you're a cuddle that's true.
Speaker 3: You're a cuddlefish once you have ascertained if you were
Speaker 3: a cuttlefish. How do you know if you're being a
Speaker 3: dick on the internet. Okay, Sarah has not only a
Speaker 3: lot of forgiveness and total compassion, but also kind of
Speaker 3: an easy test for this for.
Speaker 6: Anyone, ask yourself before you correct someone if you're right,
Speaker 6: and if you are, proceed and say it in a
Speaker 6: way that's like not hey, you're wrong, just say like
Speaker 6: I'm not sure, but I think you're wrong, and that
Speaker 6: goes over better. And also if you get caught out
Speaker 6: from man's planning, like say sorry, right, and also if
Speaker 6: people apologize for man's planning, like let them go, like
Speaker 6: they apologize, Like everybody has a douchey moment in their life.
Speaker 6: Things get so overblown so fast online and like yeah,
Speaker 6: things can really snowball.
Speaker 5: So just try to be nice to everybody.
Speaker 4: They can marine snowball.
Speaker 6: They can marine snowball. That would be the grossest snowball you've.
Speaker 4: Ever seen ever.
Speaker 3: Your position on eating cephalopods, what is it okay?
Speaker 6: So toothoid squid I eat those are like your calamar
Speaker 6: squid and bobtail squid are so small that you'd have
Speaker 6: to they would be like eating stuff mushrooms, Like they're
Speaker 6: so little, and so I don't eat.
Speaker 5: Those, partially because it would.
Speaker 6: Take a lot of work, and partially because I've raised
Speaker 6: them from like eggs, Like from day one, I'm like,
Speaker 6: well weird or squid mom, Like I can't eat them.
Speaker 6: I don't eat cuttlefish because I think they're so stink
Speaker 6: and cute that like I couldn't do it. And I've
Speaker 6: raised those two and they're like clever and cute and
Speaker 6: friendly and like when you feed.
Speaker 5: Them, they like know you and they'll normally like.
Speaker 6: Snuggle next to the seaweed and then if someone that
Speaker 6: they know comes in that like they know will feed them,
Speaker 6: they like come out of the seaweed and like say.
Speaker 5: Huh, Hi. I had this one cuttlefish.
Speaker 6: It was like cuddlefish number three or whatever that anytime
Speaker 6: I came in the room, he wouldn't just like come
Speaker 6: out of his seaweed, he would like bob his head
Speaker 6: out of the water, and it like.
Speaker 5: It was the cutest.
Speaker 6: It was like the highlight of my day every day
Speaker 6: getting greeted by cuddlefish number three. And when cuddlefish three
Speaker 6: got sick and died, I like cried in the bathroom
Speaker 6: for fifteen minutes. I was so solid because he was
Speaker 6: just like so cute and so friendly, and so I
Speaker 6: kind of think like having cuttlefish around is like having
Speaker 6: a dog around, Like they're wagging their tail and they're
Speaker 6: happy to see you and they're just like, wow, you're
Speaker 6: just the best. And then octopuses are like the jerk
Speaker 6: cats that are like some of them are nice, some
Speaker 6: of them are friendly, but a lot of them are
Speaker 6: just like you know, I couldn't give a shit. A
Speaker 6: few liver died and that was I've only worked with
Speaker 6: octopus bimaculoid is the two spot, the California.
Speaker 5: Two spot octopus.
Speaker 6: So maybe it's just them that are sometimes jerks. So
Speaker 6: I had eight of them in college and I not
Speaker 6: like in my dorm room, like in the lab.
Speaker 5: That would be a cool sign project, but not safe.
Speaker 5: So h yeah.
Speaker 6: When I would like feed them, so you feed crabs
Speaker 6: or whatever you feed them. I fed them crabs and
Speaker 6: they stack their little crabshells in a little pile, which
Speaker 6: is like really cute. Because they want to keep things
Speaker 6: neat and clean. So I would like come in to
Speaker 6: clean their tank. And sometimes they would like play with
Speaker 6: my hands or whatever. I gave them rubber ducky so
Speaker 6: they might like pull the rubber ducky to the bottom
Speaker 6: of the tank.
Speaker 5: Let go.
Speaker 6: Some of them would like squirt me in the face
Speaker 6: every single day, and I don't know if they were
Speaker 6: just like playing, like, hey girl, let me squirt you
Speaker 6: in the face. You look a little dry, but that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: Let me help you. And others would just cower in
Speaker 5: their tanks. When I was around, I was like, I
Speaker 5: feed you, I don't touch you, I don't hurt you,
Speaker 5: Like why are you afraid of me?
Speaker 6: But maybe a human out in California before they were
Speaker 6: caught was mean to them, or maybe they just have
Speaker 6: good survival instincts.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're plotting a takeover.
Speaker 5: Of the world. May takeover, that's true.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of stories of octopuses really wreaking
Speaker 6: havoc in aquarium.
Speaker 4: It didn't strike me until I was editing this.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait what Okay, the plural of aquarium is aquaria.
Speaker 5: What what?
Speaker 3: Okay? Aquariums is still considered fine, but aquaria is more correct. Also,
Speaker 3: jumbotrons are typically located in sports STADIU sit with that. Okay,
Speaker 3: back to how and why an octopus can gtfo your
Speaker 3: aquarium aquaria.
Speaker 6: You basically need to like make sure the tank is
Speaker 6: completely locked down and has no areas that they can
Speaker 6: escape that are way smaller than you think they can
Speaker 6: escape from because they can squeeze through anything the size
Speaker 6: of their beak, and their beak is way smaller than
Speaker 6: their head.
Speaker 5: How do you gotta watch out for that? How do
Speaker 5: their brains squish? So? Squid and octopus brains are bizarre.
Speaker 5: They so they're okay.
Speaker 6: So you've got a beak in the middle surrounded by
Speaker 6: arms and tentacles. If you're a squid, so two tentacles
Speaker 6: and eight arms. Everybody's got eight arms. And then they're
Speaker 6: digestive like their esophagus goes through their brain. Their brain
Speaker 6: is like doughnut shaped what and goes around their esophagus.
Speaker 6: So things are just like squashing all the time. So
Speaker 6: some cephalopods you can't squash them, Like you can't squash
Speaker 6: a cuttlefish because it cuddle bone is big and you
Speaker 6: can't squash it. But octopuses can squash through all kinds
Speaker 6: of stuff. I don't know if it's like uncomfortable, because
Speaker 6: like we can do things that are uncomfortable, like right,
Speaker 6: hard yoga positions that we can do, but like flying coach, sure,
Speaker 6: flying God, that's really unpleasant, but you can do it.
Speaker 6: You know it'll get you for me to be which
Speaker 6: is probably what the octopus is trying to do. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't know they it doesn't hurt them long term,
Speaker 6: I guess.
Speaker 3: And why do some of this squid say they're totally
Speaker 3: fine with the checkup and why are others like.
Speaker 4: Nah, nothing to see.
Speaker 5: I think this is just like a personality thing.
Speaker 6: So just like there are cats that when people come
Speaker 6: to the house they hide into the bed and others
Speaker 6: they're like, yeh, what up, my name's Rupert, like please
Speaker 6: pet me. Like I think some of them just are
Speaker 6: anxious little anchors and other of others of them, or
Speaker 6: like I've been here the whole time, you haven't killed
Speaker 6: me yet, Like let's just do this whatever. And when
Speaker 6: I'm raising the squid, they see me every day. My
Speaker 6: hands are in their tanks every day, like they get
Speaker 6: used to the blue nail polish and whatever that comes
Speaker 6: along with me. Although I think they're color blind, so
Speaker 6: they probably don't know that my nail polish is blue.
Speaker 3: They're color blind, but they have chromatophores.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how wacky is that?
Speaker 5: So I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think octopus are color blind, but I like wouldn't
Speaker 6: bet my life on that. I'm sure that cuddlefish are.
Speaker 6: So they can only see like tones of green, we think, which,
Speaker 6: how the hell.
Speaker 5: Do they figure out what to do? We don't know.
Speaker 5: There was this proposed experiment.
Speaker 6: Whether they were thinking, Okay, maybe there's like another way
Speaker 6: for them to see color that we aren't aware of,
Speaker 6: so we'll just blind them and see if they can
Speaker 6: change color and match their surroundings. But the scientist didn't
Speaker 6: want to blind a little baby cuddlefish because that would
Speaker 6: make you really sad.
Speaker 5: So it never got done cause the next time people
Speaker 5: are like scientists are just cold harded. They'll kill any
Speaker 5: like no.
Speaker 6: Sometimes we feel so bad that we just won't do
Speaker 6: it and won't get the answer.
Speaker 5: But anyway, I digress.
Speaker 3: You can blindfold them and just be like close.
Speaker 5: Your eyes, close your eyes.
Speaker 6: We thought about doing that, but as we mentioned, cephlopods
Speaker 6: are real squishy, so we were like, what would happen
Speaker 6: if we like took those goggles that you put on
Speaker 6: when people go tanning, yeah, and just like stick them
Speaker 6: on a cuttlefish.
Speaker 5: So we like tried. They basically reached their arms back
Speaker 5: and like pull it off their face.
Speaker 6: So if you think it's hard to like blindfold a dog,
Speaker 6: like this is a squishy headed dog that has opposable everything,
Speaker 6: so like they can just yoank stuff right out.
Speaker 5: And multiples of arms, yeah, like eight of them.
Speaker 3: Side note arms versus tentacles. It's a thing. Octopuses have
Speaker 3: eight arms, but squid and cuttlefish have eight arms plus
Speaker 3: two tentacles. The tentacles are the two longer stretchy ones
Speaker 3: with the grippy clubs on the end of them, and
Speaker 3: the clubs have these circular serrated rings kind of like teeth,
Speaker 3: so they can whip out and catch stuff, which would
Speaker 3: be so handy if you were like sitting on a
Speaker 3: couch and your bag of Cheetos was across the room
Speaker 3: and you were like, wow, okay, you wanted to make
Speaker 3: sensual love to someone but didn't want to walk over
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 4: Tentacles also helpful. And now what about for sexing?
Speaker 3: I heard that an octopus will just use the end
Speaker 3: of an arm like a paddle covered in sperms and
Speaker 3: then be like, hey, sensus something and like send it
Speaker 3: swimming over to a lady like.
Speaker 4: Use this, use this and make some babies.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so there.
Speaker 6: Cephalopod sex is varied and wacky. So yeah, let's just
Speaker 6: like talk about it because there's a lot to talk
Speaker 6: about here. So I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 6: So in deep sea squid, not all deep sea squid,
Speaker 6: but this one deep sea squid whose genus and species
Speaker 6: name obviously is not coming to me right.
Speaker 3: Now, googled and it's Octoputothus delectron for those taking notes.
Speaker 6: They see each other so rarely that when they see
Speaker 6: another squid, like, they don't care if it's malequid. They
Speaker 6: don't care if it's a female squid. When the male
Speaker 6: squid see another squid.
Speaker 5: They will punch through the body cavity and just like
Speaker 5: stick sperm somewhere in there. What So, like if you think.
Speaker 6: You've had a bad date, I'm sure you have, but
Speaker 6: at least no one literally punched sperm through your abs, Like.
Speaker 5: No, and they don't even verify verify No, there's like, oh,
Speaker 5: that could be a squid.
Speaker 6: And then it's like, oh, so there are just like
Speaker 6: male squid getting sperm stuck on the inside female squid
Speaker 6: against whare.
Speaker 5: That just sounds like a terrible approach. But do they
Speaker 5: survive it? Yeah? Yeah, so I would.
Speaker 3: I would change myself into an invisibility cloak all the time,
Speaker 3: no wonder.
Speaker 5: I'd be like, yeah, there's no squid here. I got
Speaker 5: to get out of here. And this is the pits.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the dating scene of the deep sea is no good. Okay,
Speaker 6: let's talk about something better. So we've got the giant
Speaker 6: Australian cuddlefish. And this is like my favorite cephalopod tail
Speaker 6: out there. So these these cuddlefish are like.
Speaker 5: A meter long. They're huge and beautiful. So the males
Speaker 5: are like.
Speaker 6: Okay, if you can picture a cudle fish, if you've
Speaker 6: never seen a cuttlefish before. Picture a rugby ball with
Speaker 6: like a bed skirt around the outside, and then like
Speaker 6: a little stupid face with eight arms.
Speaker 5: So you're there, we're there.
Speaker 6: And now the males have these two big arms that
Speaker 6: kind of are like flopping down on either side. They're
Speaker 6: really big and kind of billowy, and they kind of
Speaker 6: look like someone put on a shirt that's way too
Speaker 6: big for them, and that's their skin. And they're purple
Speaker 6: and blue and beautiful and.
Speaker 3: Roughly, honestly, with their arms like right in front of
Speaker 3: their eyes, they look like heavily mustachioed, like Ron Swanson types,
Speaker 3: or like a bristle lipped cop from.
Speaker 4: An old movie.
Speaker 3: And now the female of the species is much smaller,
Speaker 3: and they tend to put on more maroon splotchy patterns,
Speaker 3: so they're easily distinguished from the males by the size
Speaker 3: and the color. Well, most males, and there are a
Speaker 3: lot of males in the breeding frenzies, which I propose
Speaker 3: I think they should call them cuddle parties.
Speaker 6: It's quite a battle because there's like ten males to
Speaker 6: every one female out there, so yeah, it's a tough it's.
Speaker 5: A tough sausage parties. It's a sausage vest.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So the big males will basically battle each other.
Speaker 6: They'll wrestle, and the winner of the wrestling match, which
Speaker 6: is like hilarious because like watching two like comforters battle
Speaker 6: is like pretty funny. So there, yet there's like flu
Speaker 6: feed tentacles everywhere, arms rather everywhere, and the winner gets
Speaker 6: access to the female for at least a bit of
Speaker 6: time mates with her, and then the females meanwhile mating
Speaker 6: with many males throughout this time period and storing the
Speaker 6: sperm from each male in these little pockets that she's
Speaker 6: got in her arms, and she's like just keeping her
Speaker 6: rolodex of.
Speaker 5: Sperm ready to go.
Speaker 6: And then when she actually lays her eggs, she gets
Speaker 6: to kind of pick who she liked and who she
Speaker 6: didn't like.
Speaker 5: Does she remember? Because I can't.
Speaker 3: That sounds like the season premiere of The Bachelor, Basically,
Speaker 3: I guess she does.
Speaker 5: How does she do it? I don't know.
Speaker 6: They're very organized, so okay, that's already pretty cool. But
Speaker 6: then you have these little males and they know they
Speaker 6: don't stand a chance against the big males if they
Speaker 6: get in a battle they're gonna lose, so they got
Speaker 6: to think of something.
Speaker 5: Else to do, so they will cross dress.
Speaker 6: Basically, they take those two big billowy arms in the
Speaker 6: side and they just tuck them a la Rue Paul's
Speaker 6: drag race, and no they do. And then they put
Speaker 6: on this like the modey pattern of the female. And
Speaker 6: then they just like swim on over to the female
Speaker 6: and they're like, hey girl. And then when the male
Speaker 6: is like, I'm killing it. I got two ladies. This
Speaker 6: is the best day ever, yo, Joe. And then while
Speaker 6: he goes to talk to his friend, the little male
Speaker 6: is like psm. A dude mates with the female, leaves
Speaker 6: really fast so that he doesn't get his ass kicked
Speaker 6: by the big male. And then when the female goes
Speaker 6: to lay her eggs, so she's got her eggs like
Speaker 6: all back up in the mantle and she fertilizes them
Speaker 6: one by one and puts them in a little egg
Speaker 6: clutch on the bottom.
Speaker 5: Of the ocean. So when she goes to do that,
Speaker 5: like I.
Speaker 6: Said before, she can choose who she liked. And those males,
Speaker 6: the little males that cross dress, they get a bigger
Speaker 6: proportion of the eggs than the big males. Why, I
Speaker 6: guess they want to like maybe the females liked intelligence.
Speaker 5: Like, hey, that was pretty smart.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 6: So if we're ever like how did those stephalopods get
Speaker 6: so smart, it's like, well, here's one way they're choosing
Speaker 6: for it.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like the like the worst rom com
Speaker 3: plot ever. So they're able to change their pattern to
Speaker 3: look like a lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's all like so we talk about like
Speaker 6: and I might get yelled after this, but like we
Speaker 6: talk about gender being obviously different from sex, and you
Speaker 6: only have gender when there's society, you know, so like
Speaker 6: we normally we're only like, well, gender is only true
Speaker 6: in humans because only humans have society. And it's like
Speaker 6: and yet if you can cross stress and put on
Speaker 6: different like cultural patterns and signals of being a male
Speaker 6: or female, Like do cuttlefish kind of have gender? Like
Speaker 6: maybe I don't know. I'm not a gender and sexuality scientist.
Speaker 6: I'm a squid scientist.
Speaker 5: But food for thought for us to all think about
Speaker 5: as we go about our day.
Speaker 3: I mean it's kind of like how us ladies like
Speaker 3: funny ugly guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: You're like, you've got a good brain. Yeah, I do
Speaker 4: you need a jaw line?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Man, that's so fascinating.
Speaker 3: I always like to ask, is there a movie about
Speaker 3: cephalopods that you hate or love?
Speaker 5: All?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: Whale Leagues under the Sea has a giant squid. There
Speaker 6: are certainly no movies about squid biologists that I'm aware of.
Speaker 3: Are there any sea creatures like giant squid and any
Speaker 3: of the pirates in the Yeah.
Speaker 6: There is the krack and one of them. But yeah,
Speaker 6: we can talk about that because that kraken upsets me. Okay, So,
Speaker 6: like we said, cephalopods have beaks, and this kraken when
Speaker 6: it comes out now, of course, like the kracken is
Speaker 6: a mythological creature, but the kracken that was the mythological
Speaker 6: creature we've shown it's probably a giant squid. So I
Speaker 6: denounced the fact that it's mythological.
Speaker 5: It's real.
Speaker 6: Uh so whatever, So it's like, stick with what's real.
Speaker 6: And so the kraken in that movie has like.
Speaker 5: Rings of teeth like a shark sort of, but like
Speaker 5: there's no beak in there.
Speaker 6: It's just rings of teeth. And I'm like, come on, man,
Speaker 6: you we have access to what those animals look like.
Speaker 5: Beaks are scary enough, but we don't need rings of teething.
Speaker 5: What do the beaks look like?
Speaker 3: And where did those come from from an evolutionary standpoint?
Speaker 6: Who I don't know where they came from from an
Speaker 6: evolutionary standpoint, but they look like sharp parrot beaks kind of,
Speaker 6: they're like brown parrot beaks. I should have brought them
Speaker 6: because I have a collection of squid beaks, which is
Speaker 6: something that we don't mention on the first date, which
Speaker 6: I'm going to tell you a story that I've never
Speaker 6: told on a podcast before. Yeah, So, once upon a
Speaker 6: time I was gone on a date with a dude
Speaker 6: whose name I shouldn't mention. We were hanging out and
Speaker 6: talking about raccoons and stuff, as you do on a
Speaker 6: first day, and then.
Speaker 5: We things were going pretty well.
Speaker 6: So we were back in my apartment and then we
Speaker 6: like went in my room to hang out, and then
Speaker 6: he found a box under my bed.
Speaker 5: It was like what it was like pretty close to
Speaker 5: that to like the he was like deep under my head.
Speaker 5: It was like pretty close to the outside of my bed,
Speaker 5: and he was like, well, what's in the box? Thinking
Speaker 5: it would be something that would be.
Speaker 6: Fun for him, But I knew that that box had
Speaker 6: like squid beaks in it, like squid peaked, octopus peaks,
Speaker 6: cuddle bones, like dried flowers and like snake skins and stuff.
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh, no, yeah, you don't want
Speaker 5: to go in there, like that's it's maybe not the
Speaker 5: best idea. So he was like, oh, that means I
Speaker 5: should definitely go in there.
Speaker 6: So he opens it up and like, Okay, maybe recently
Speaker 6: I had gotten some squid and maybe I was like
Speaker 6: still working on getting some of the squid chunks off
Speaker 6: of them, so I like had soaked them in this
Speaker 6: like ethan all. So like I So he was like, wait,
Speaker 6: what is this and was like already like the look
Speaker 6: on his face went from like this is gonna be
Speaker 6: a great night to.
Speaker 5: Like what the fuck did I get myself into? And
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, well, I mean those are just
Speaker 5: like squid peaks.
Speaker 6: And I also have some octopus and uh, cuddlefish too,
Speaker 6: and or and then and he he opened it. He
Speaker 6: opened it, and and then he just closed the jar,
Speaker 6: put it back in the box, put the box under
Speaker 6: my bed.
Speaker 5: Oh, walked out and never talked to me. No again.
Speaker 3: Oh I was gonna ho I was home.
Speaker 5: No say that you're like engaged or something not even.
Speaker 3: After hanging out in a basement with his chick for
Speaker 3: one hour, I can very much say his loss.
Speaker 4: Are you ready for some rapid fire?
Speaker 5: I'm so ready for some rapid Okay, all right, But.
Speaker 3: Before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're
Speaker 3: going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors.
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Speaker 3: Okay, your questions, Lily masaman to know what's the deal
Speaker 3: with squid ink?
Speaker 5: What's the deal with squid ink?
Speaker 6: So squid Okay, yeah, this is a good question because
Speaker 6: I can go anywhere I want with it. So squid
Speaker 6: ink is it's a pigment that they store in their
Speaker 6: inksack and they primarily use it to get away from predators.
Speaker 5: So they have two options. They could either make.
Speaker 6: This poofy cloud that they just like like a smoke bomb,
Speaker 6: and then they disappear and confuse everybody and potentially it
Speaker 6: tastes bad to some fish.
Speaker 3: So the inky like ah, you can't see me leave
Speaker 3: is one tactic.
Speaker 5: Another approach is.
Speaker 6: What's called a pseudomorph So that's a blob that they
Speaker 6: incorporate mucus into.
Speaker 5: The Uh. But no, it's great, It's okay. I've had
Speaker 5: it all over my face before because.
Speaker 6: I was working with a squid and it woke up
Speaker 6: in the middle of me trying to wake it up
Speaker 6: really violently and just inked me right in the face
Speaker 6: and it was just like dripping off my face, and
Speaker 6: I was like, man.
Speaker 5: I deserved it.
Speaker 6: They'll shoot the pseudomorph where they were, jet away from
Speaker 6: where they are, leave the blob where they were, So
Speaker 6: the shark or the big fish is like, oh, there
Speaker 6: is and then attacks the blob and just gets a
Speaker 6: mouthful of mucacy.
Speaker 3: Ink. How pissed would you be if you were eating
Speaker 3: a sandwich. You blink for a second, you put the
Speaker 3: sandwich your mouth. It's an inky, inky blob of mucus.
Speaker 5: That would be a real bummer.
Speaker 4: Your sandwich is like what aren't Yeah?
Speaker 5: Pissed? Pissed.
Speaker 3: So that's the deal. I didn't know that that's what
Speaker 3: they used it for. I thought they were they only
Speaker 3: produced it for pasta.
Speaker 5: That's true, they also use it for pasta.
Speaker 3: Al Martinez wants to know how many giant squids are
Speaker 3: there and is there any truth to the old tails
Speaker 3: of giant squids attacking ships.
Speaker 5: Okay, no, that's that's the question I'll answer.
Speaker 6: So there are most likely a shit ton of giant
Speaker 6: squid because we find a lot of giant squid beaks
Speaker 6: in sperm whales.
Speaker 5: So we've like tried to back of.
Speaker 6: The envelope calculate how many giant squid there are, and
Speaker 6: I don't have that exact number in my head, but
Speaker 6: they live pretty much everywhere in the deep ocean. Now,
Speaker 6: the reason there's this myth about them attacking ships is
Speaker 6: that these animals are full of ammonia, which is part
Speaker 6: of dealing with buoyancy basically, and when they die, instead
Speaker 6: of sinking like other squid and cuttlefish and octopus to do,
Speaker 6: they float.
Speaker 5: And so when.
Speaker 6: They're starting to feel like crap and start to die,
Speaker 6: they tend to just sort of like go near the
Speaker 6: top of the water. Yeah, we think there are a lot,
Speaker 6: a lot, a lot of giant squid oo oh, and
Speaker 6: they get to the top of the water when they're sick,
Speaker 6: and ships like maybe they'll just like touch the side
Speaker 6: of the ship because they're like what what year is it?
Speaker 5: Like who are you? Are you gonna help me?
Speaker 6: And then they're like the sailors like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: it's attacking. Meanwhile, it's just like on its deathbed and
Speaker 6: feeling like garbage. So it's not gonna hurt you.
Speaker 5: Tell my family, I love exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: John Worst wants to know how intelligent is an octopus?
Speaker 3: Would it's intelligence level compare it to like a four
Speaker 3: or five year old child, or is it more intelligent
Speaker 3: than that?
Speaker 6: The short answer is like, Lord knows how smart any
Speaker 6: given animal is.
Speaker 5: You Really it's like a harder question than you think
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 6: So when you are assessing how smart an animal is
Speaker 6: and you're not like an animal intelligence scientist, you might think, like, okay,
Speaker 6: you're kind of judging the animal based on how you
Speaker 6: judge human intelligence. How smart is an octopus compared to
Speaker 6: like an age of human I don't know, maybe like
Speaker 6: a dog, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I guess it also depends on how dumb your children are.
Speaker 5: That's very true. I've ever had a child or watched
Speaker 5: one develop. I mean, dam so.
Speaker 3: As a four year old, I got my whole arm
Speaker 3: stuck in an escalator and they had to invent the
Speaker 3: emergency stop button for me and another kid whose foot
Speaker 3: got eaten off.
Speaker 4: So it's really depends on.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who's definitely wouldn't happen to an octagen.
Speaker 3: No, So even if it did, it's like I have
Speaker 3: seven extra I'm just gonna eat this.
Speaker 5: We're good, okay.
Speaker 3: Christa Avanpado says, are squid likely to be more impacted
Speaker 3: by climate change than other sea animals? Or they or
Speaker 3: will they be one of the species it's best able
Speaker 3: to adapt.
Speaker 6: So squid are doing really well right now, but we
Speaker 6: think that's more to do with the fact that we
Speaker 6: don't overfish them.
Speaker 5: So we have overfished the hell out of most fish populations.
Speaker 6: We started with the biggest fish and then we've been
Speaker 6: working our way down ever since, so the really small
Speaker 6: prey fish are doing the best. The one thing that
Speaker 6: cephalopods generally have to worry about with climate change is
Speaker 6: ocean acidification. So basically, when the ocean is acidic, it's
Speaker 6: harder to build a shell, so that's going to be
Speaker 6: a problem for all crustaceans and clams, bibales, whatever. Now,
Speaker 6: when they're looking at populations in the last like five
Speaker 6: ten years, all of the cephalopods that I know of
Speaker 6: are doing really well. But we don't have really good
Speaker 6: records of fisheries information for squid because back then you
Speaker 6: wouldn't need to eat a squid because you had cod
Speaker 6: coming out your ears. So we think they're doing all right.
Speaker 6: We don't think they're in dangered. The other nice thing
Speaker 6: is that they have really short life spans for the
Speaker 6: purposes of adapting quickly.
Speaker 5: That's great when you produce a lot of your species,
Speaker 5: it leads.
Speaker 6: It gives you more opportunity to adapt quickly and evolve
Speaker 6: quickly compared to an animal that you know needs to
Speaker 6: live fifty years before it reproduces, right.
Speaker 3: So they have more iterations to kind of play a
Speaker 3: week and yeah, see, oh that's interesting. I had never
Speaker 3: thought about that. Okay, Jennifer Overbe wants to know. Are
Speaker 3: squid social creatures? I think we just talked about how
Speaker 3: they were loaners. She said, I've only ever seen them alone,
Speaker 3: but they must get busy every once in a while.
Speaker 3: So with how intelligent they are, do they have a
Speaker 3: complicated social structure.
Speaker 5: So it depends on the species.
Speaker 6: So some like CPA toothists, which are these like really
Speaker 6: really beautiful squid that have the bend skirt that goes
Speaker 6: all the way around, the fin that goes all the
Speaker 6: way around. They will generally travel in groups of like
Speaker 6: I don't know, thread to seven ish and so they're
Speaker 6: always hanging out together. Humboldt squid travel in huge packs. Now,
Speaker 6: Humboldt squid.
Speaker 5: Are up there with some of the coolest cephalopods.
Speaker 6: They're like human sized lengthwise, They're like thick and big
Speaker 6: and scary, and they've they're like some people have said
Speaker 6: that they kill people swimming, which I wouldn't put past them,
Speaker 6: but I don't know if there are like recorded deaths
Speaker 6: from Humboldt squid.
Speaker 5: But I would believe it.
Speaker 3: Humboldt squid FYI also called red devils, and they're known
Speaker 3: to be very intelligent, very curious, and aggressive. So those
Speaker 3: beaks they have that look like bird beaks have more
Speaker 3: bite force than an African lion, which is a fact
Speaker 3: I did not need to know, and I kind of
Speaker 3: wish I didn't.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: So in they live off Baja California, and I think
Speaker 6: in twenty ten they were coming up through, like up
Speaker 6: to San Francisco.
Speaker 5: They're huge traveling packs. They flash red and white to
Speaker 5: communicate with.
Speaker 6: Each other, we think, and they will pack hunt, which
Speaker 6: is so scary, Like as if one Humboldt squid isn't
Speaker 6: scary enough, Like I people who will sometimes dive with
Speaker 6: them and literally wear like chain mail because they don't want.
Speaker 5: To get bit.
Speaker 4: Could they eat a human?
Speaker 5: Sure? Why not? Yeah?
Speaker 6: And then the bummer about getting eaten by a squid
Speaker 6: is that they don't care if you're living or dead.
Speaker 6: While they're eating you, they will like they have such
Speaker 6: so many arms to grab onto you that they'll grab
Speaker 6: on and like start chomping away while you're still alive.
Speaker 5: Oh boy, God, so it's bad. Are very scary.
Speaker 3: It seems like with a Humboldt squid, if they're the
Speaker 3: size of a human, it would just be like getting
Speaker 3: into a big skin sleeping bag, like you would just
Speaker 3: fill their whole guts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they might like eat part of you and
Speaker 5: then drop you.
Speaker 4: Oh cool? Yeah did you share the well yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Like anyone watch some of this? Yeah, well you're
Speaker 5: gonna become marine snow.
Speaker 4: Mike Ramsey wants to know.
Speaker 3: Every once in a while, a strange creature washes up
Speaker 3: on a beach somewhere and may often be described as
Speaker 3: squid like but of unknown classification. Is anyone maintaining a
Speaker 3: database of unknown sea creatures If there's no immediate obvious
Speaker 3: classification and no easy way to find living specimens, does
Speaker 3: anyone research these things.
Speaker 6: So I think a lot of times when things wash
Speaker 6: up that could be cephalopods, but that we don't really know,
Speaker 6: Like cephalopods degrade really fast, they don't have they're like okay,
Speaker 6: so for example, if one of my squid dies in
Speaker 6: the tank the next morning, it'll already start to come apart.
Speaker 6: If I leave it till the afternoon, like it's body
Speaker 6: parts will start falling off. And this is like this
Speaker 6: is like just in like a tank where there's not
Speaker 6: a lot of like wave action. By the next morning,
Speaker 6: if I pick it up, it will fall through my
Speaker 6: fingers liquid. So like identifying positively a lot of this
Speaker 6: stuff is really hard to do. So that's probably why
Speaker 6: they're saying like unidentified. Yeah it was a cephalopod, but
Speaker 6: like what was it?
Speaker 5: Lord knows.
Speaker 3: Brian Edge wants to know how threatened are the not
Speaker 3: Alloyd populations.
Speaker 4: They've always been one of my favorite cephalopods.
Speaker 5: Great choice.
Speaker 6: The notilids are in bad shape right now because we
Speaker 6: keep collecting them for their shells. Their shells are gorgeous
Speaker 6: and if you cut them in half that you see
Speaker 6: like these different chambers that the animal used to live in.
Speaker 6: But they reproduce pretty slowly and they don't produce as
Speaker 6: much as many offspring per nautilus as the squid do. So,
Speaker 6: but go online and look up the nautilus breeding program
Speaker 6: at the Moderai Bay Aquarium because you have these like
Speaker 6: little baby nautilus videos and they're so cute. Like cuttlefish
Speaker 6: look like just tiny fully formed cuttlefish, which are so
Speaker 6: cute that it hurts a little bit. And nautilus is
Speaker 6: the same way. They come out pretty big and they
Speaker 6: just look like fully formed nautilus but small with.
Speaker 5: A shell, with a shell. It's really just so cute.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so don't buy nautilus shells because you're depleting
Speaker 6: the population and we gotta cool it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's three D print some Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, are there enough people studying squid and octopus and cuttlefish.
Speaker 6: There's not enough government money to fund people studying cephalopods.
Speaker 6: There should be more because they're so dope and we
Speaker 6: can learn so much from Like understanding how they're doing
Speaker 6: this stuff is really important for like engineering purposes down
Speaker 6: the line. What my work is doing is really more
Speaker 6: about understanding how your microbiome stays healthy.
Speaker 5: But yeah, there's a lot to learn from these animals.
Speaker 5: It's super cool. Also, octopuses, octopuses. I know you want
Speaker 5: it to be octopi. We all do we all? Octopi
Speaker 5: sounds nice. Octopuses.
Speaker 2: You have to say pusses.
Speaker 6: Man, I know it's a stone cold bummer, but it's
Speaker 6: it's what.
Speaker 5: It's the fact of life.
Speaker 6: So you just got to just get up in the mirror,
Speaker 6: look at yourselff and just say octopuses and keep a
Speaker 6: straight face. And then when you can do it, you've
Speaker 6: made it. Then then you can apply to be a
Speaker 6: cephalopod biologist. If you can say octopuses, I.
Speaker 3: Got a way to go. Okay, So what about your job?
Speaker 4: Secks the most?
Speaker 2: What do you hate? I mean, tanks?
Speaker 5: Is it? Probably?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 6: Probably Like dead shrimp is the worst part of my
Speaker 6: job because they turn like.
Speaker 5: Pink and get goofy and like that's and they smell
Speaker 5: pretty bad. So that's the one of the worst parts
Speaker 5: of my job. And that's normally what I say.
Speaker 6: But also, like the worst part maybe of being a
Speaker 6: squid biology specifically is people. And you can cut this
Speaker 6: if you want, but people will like, no joke, send
Speaker 6: me technacal porn on the internet, And I'm like, but
Speaker 6: like people will no joke, be like, oh, you're into
Speaker 6: tentacle porn like in college, I'd be like, I'm really not.
Speaker 6: Like that really upsets me because these square are these nice,
Speaker 6: lovely little animals, like why.
Speaker 3: But also, don't send it to someone unless they request it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, actually someone that really cares about the welfare of cephalopods,
Speaker 5: like God.
Speaker 6: So that happens to me more than I that's probably
Speaker 6: the worst part. Like I can I can like pick
Speaker 6: up thirty dead shrimp and be like, I had a
Speaker 6: really good day today, but like any day that somebody
Speaker 6: sends me squid porn is a bad day at least
Speaker 6: a bad afternoon.
Speaker 5: I'm like report, like, no, please, don't. What is the
Speaker 5: best thing about your job?
Speaker 6: The best thing about my job right now is watching
Speaker 6: a baby baby squid. So when they first hatch, their
Speaker 6: like the size of the head of a pin, and
Speaker 6: they'll take down these shrimp called mycens they're about like
Speaker 6: four times as big asan them, and it's that's very cute.
Speaker 6: But when they transition from little shrimp to big shrimp,
Speaker 6: it's hilarious because these little squid that are maybe like
Speaker 6: a quarter of a marble in size will tackle these
Speaker 6: big shrimp and it's like hilarious because they've got this
Speaker 6: huge shrimp in their mouth and they're like trying to
Speaker 6: swim and like control where this big shrimp goes. And
Speaker 6: that means that I can now pay a little less
Speaker 6: money to feed them, which is great, and it means
Speaker 6: that they're gonna make it, because that's the hardest part
Speaker 6: of raising a squid, getting into transition to big or shrimp.
Speaker 6: And if they make that transition, it's like I've done it.
Speaker 6: Like that's like sending your kid to college.
Speaker 5: Like you did it. You didn't screw it up. Everything's good,
Speaker 5: and it's just like so stupid cute. I can't handle it.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of when like a tiny poodle is
Speaker 3: carrying a huge stick.
Speaker 5: Right, No, it's exactly like that. Oh, it's just like that,
Speaker 5: but with more arms.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they'll like stretch all their stupid little arms
Speaker 6: around the shrimp body and it cracks me up.
Speaker 3: I forgot to ask you entirely. And then how can
Speaker 3: people get involved with skype a scientist?
Speaker 6: And basically it's a program where we match up scientists
Speaker 6: and either classrooms or groups.
Speaker 5: Of adults that like learning.
Speaker 6: So that they can have these like thirty to sixty
Speaker 6: minute question and answer sessions with a scientist.
Speaker 3: So Skype a Scientist isn't just for school kids. They
Speaker 3: just expanded to just adults. So if you're a book
Speaker 3: club or a library group, you can sign up and
Speaker 3: you can gather and you can chat with one of
Speaker 3: over fifteen hundred scientists who have already signed up. You
Speaker 3: can go to skypascientists dot com and you can click
Speaker 3: for more info. If you're a scientist or if you're
Speaker 3: someone who wants to talk to one.
Speaker 4: Click the teacher button.
Speaker 3: So it's also not just for Skype. You can FaceTime
Speaker 3: or video hangout. But was like, I mean, let's be honest,
Speaker 3: Google Plus hangout a scientists just does not have a
Speaker 3: ring to it, so they just call it Skype a scientist.
Speaker 6: Every scientist loves answering questions about their work. They're spending
Speaker 6: their whole life working on it. So just tweet at them.
Speaker 6: Probably they're gonna be happy that somebody talks to them
Speaker 6: and cares about their science.
Speaker 4: That's such solid advice.
Speaker 3: I think so many people figure that, like if you
Speaker 3: were to tap the shoulder of a working scientist, they
Speaker 3: would rear.
Speaker 5: Back in a lab and say it, how to hell you.
Speaker 3: It's nice to know that they're like, oh no, sweet,
Speaker 3: I'm just like walking through them all. And I can
Speaker 3: totally answer that right now waiting for a smoovie.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, totally. I think.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the movies and TV give science is such a
Speaker 6: bad rep. Like we're friendly and like talking to other
Speaker 6: people most of the time. There's no reason to not
Speaker 6: talk to us. And a lot of times, like if
Speaker 6: you're studying some weird thing like bob tail, squinson biosis
Speaker 6: or whatever, like you probably don't think people care some
Speaker 6: of the time. So like when people do care, it's like.
Speaker 5: Awesome, Yeah, let's talk about my favorite thing. Of course
Speaker 5: I want to talk about this. So yeah, don't be
Speaker 5: afraid of us.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you so so much for being I'm so excited.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was only like several months of like
Speaker 3: mildly stalking you.
Speaker 5: That's fine, and we're gonna be around.
Speaker 4: It's me again.
Speaker 5: It's such a creep.
Speaker 3: It should be noted that during this interview we also
Speaker 3: paused for a moment and we did our best impressions
Speaker 3: of squid and cuttlefish dances for each other. Hers was
Speaker 3: amazing and if you ever see her out in Connecticut,
Speaker 3: she says, you have to buy her beer to see
Speaker 3: it performed, which is fair. Also, we got locked in
Speaker 3: this library basement for like five or ten minutes after
Speaker 3: the interview, which was scary, but honestly, I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: changed it for the world. It was a good time.
Speaker 3: Now to Internet befriend Sarah McNulty. You can follow her
Speaker 3: on Twitter or Instagram at Sarah mac Attack sa rh
Speaker 3: mack attack. She also gives advice to anyone wanting to
Speaker 3: get involved with squitch. She says, just start working with
Speaker 3: animals in general as soon as you can in any capacity.
Speaker 3: Don't be afraid to do disgusting work. You can also
Speaker 3: volunteer at one of the many aquaria in the nation
Speaker 3: and just ask people questions, ask scientists questions. If you're
Speaker 3: ever living in Connecticut, you want to work with her,
Speaker 3: if you're a big squid nerd and you're like, this
Speaker 3: is my jam reach out. She also thanked her squid
Speaker 3: squad that help with her research in the lab, zach
Speaker 3: Elise Hope, Courtney, and Lydia. Thank you from me to
Speaker 3: Stephen Ray Morris for editing this Cephala podcast, and to
Speaker 3: Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltis for handling all the ologies
Speaker 3: merch at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Aaron Talbert and
Speaker 3: Hannah Lippo being admins and wonderful friends. The ologies Facebook
Speaker 3: group that they admin is great. It's full of curious,
Speaker 3: hilarious people. I'd love going in there and saying hi
Speaker 3: to everyone. Thank you to all the patrons for financially
Speaker 3: making this podcast possible. Thank you you are really the
Speaker 3: engine behind this.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: Patreon dot com, slash ologies. If you want to support
Speaker 3: even a quarter an episode helps, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Nick Thorburn of the band Islands did the music, and
Speaker 3: I guess I always give you guys a little secret
Speaker 3: at the very end of the podcast as a thank
Speaker 3: you for listening very much.
Speaker 4: Not a redhead.
Speaker 3: And on top of that, I die my hair with
Speaker 3: stuff out of a box from the grocery store and
Speaker 3: in the shower it looks like Carrie but it costs
Speaker 3: about ten dollars and it usually turns out the right color.
Speaker 4: So there you go.
Speaker 5: That's your secret.
Speaker 3: Okay, ask more people dumb questions.
Speaker 4: Next week.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be Mythology what do you
Speaker 3: think it's going me good bye pacadermatology, homeology, ryptozoology, lithology
Speaker 3: and technology, meteorology, baraology, napology, seriology, selenology,