This 30 March 2020 video says about itself:
2 Metre Long Humboldt Squid Hunt In Packs | Life | BBC Earth
Highly intelligent, with powerful tentacles and a razor-sharp beak – the Humboldt squid is a true terror of the deep. This 2-metre long beast has a reputation as a man-eater, and it’s easy to see why.
Narrated by David Attenborough.
This 2017 video says about itself:
Strange and unusual life inhabits the plankton-rich seas of the underwater kelp forests. Watch this short video from BBC natural history series The Blue Planet to see the mating habits of amazing colour changing squid and the weird movements of the aptly named handfish.
From Stanford University in the USA:
How squid communicate in the dark
March 24, 2020
Summary: Researchers begin to reveal how social squid communicate in the near-blackness of the deep sea.
In the frigid waters 1,500 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of human-sized Humboldt squid feed on a patch of finger-length lantern fish. Zipping past each other, the predators move with exceptional precision, never colliding or competing for prey.
How do they establish such order in the near-darkness of the ocean’s twilight zone?
The answer, according to researchers from Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) may be visual communication. Like the illuminated words on an e-book reader, these researchers suggest that the squid’s ability to subtly glow — using light-producing organs in their muscles — can create a backlight for shifting pigmentation patterns on their skin. The creatures may be using these changing patterns to signal one another.
The research is published March 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Many squid live in fairly shallow water and don’t have these light-producing organs, so it’s possible this is a key evolutionary innovation for being able to inhabit the open ocean,” said Benjamin Burford, a graduate student in biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford and lead author of the paper. “Maybe they need this ability to glow and display these pigmentation patterns to facilitate group behaviors in order to survive out there.”
Seeing the deep sea
Humboldt squid behavior is nearly impossible to study in captivity, so researchers must meet them where they live. For this research, Bruce Robison of MBARI, who is senior author of the paper, captured footage of Humboldt squid off the coast of California using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), or unmanned, robotic submarines.
While the ROVs could record the squid’s skin patterning, the lights the cameras required were too bright to record their subtle glow, so the researchers couldn’t test their backlighting hypothesis directly. Instead, they found supporting evidence for it in their anatomical studies of captured squid.
Using the ROV footage, the researchers analyzed how individual squid behaved when they were feeding versus when they were not. They also paid attention to how these behaviors changed depending on the number of other squid in the immediate area — after all, people communicate differently if they are speaking with friends versus a large audience.
The footage confirmed that squid’s pigmentation patterns do seem to relate to specific contexts. Some patterns were detailed enough to imply that the squid may be communicating precise messages — such as “that fish over there is mine.” There was also evidence that their behaviors could be broken down into distinct units that the squid recombine to form different messages, like letters in the alphabet. Still, the researchers emphasize that it is too early to conclude whether the squid communications constitute a human-like language.
“Right now, as we speak, there are probably squid signaling each other in the deep ocean,” said Burford, who is affiliated with the Denny lab at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station. “And who knows what kind of information they’re saying and what kind of decisions they’re making based on that information?”
Although these squid can see well in dim light, their vision is probably not especially sharp, so the researchers speculated that the light-producing organs help facilitate the squid’s visual communications by boosting the contrast for their skin patterning. They investigated this hypothesis by mapping where these light organs are located in Humboldt squid and comparing that to where the most detailed skin patterns appear on the creatures.
They found that the areas where the illuminating organs were most densely packed — such as a small area between the squid’s eyes and the thin edge of their fins — corresponded to those where the most intricate patterns occurred.
Familiar aliens
In the time since the squid were filmed, ROV technology has advanced enough that the team could directly view their backlighting hypothesis in action the next time the squid are observed in California. Burford would also like to create some sort of virtual squid that the team could project in front of real squid to see how they respond to the cyber-squid’s patterns and movements.
The researchers are thrilled with what they have found so far but eager to do further research in the deep sea. Although studying the inhabitants of the deep sea where they live can be a frustratingly difficult endeavor, this research has the potential to inform a new understanding of squid as crazy lifeforms living in this alien world but we have a lot in common — they live in groups, they’re social, they talking of how life functions.
“We are so like another,” Burford said. “Researching their behavior and that of other residents of the deep sea is important for learning how life may exist in alien environments, but it also tells us more generally about the strategies used in extreme environments on our own planet.”
This work was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Department of Biology at Stanford.
Revealing yet another super-power in the skillful squid, scientists have discovered that squid massively edit their own genetic instructions not only within the nucleus of their neurons, but also within the axon — the long, slender neural projections that transmit electrical impulses to other neurons. This is the first time that edits to genetic information have been observed outside of the nucleus of an animal cell: here.
This 2015 video says about itself:
Octopuses and cuttlefish are masters of underwater camouflage, blending in seamlessly against a rock or coral. But squid have to hide in the open ocean, mimicking the subtle interplay of light, water, and waves. How do they do it?
From the University of Queensland in Australia:
MRI-based mapping of the squid brain
January 28, 2020
We are closer to understanding the incredible ability of squid to instantly camouflage themselves, thanks to research from The University of Queensland.
Dr Wen-Sung Chung and Professor Justin Marshall, from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute, completed the first MRI-based mapping of the squid brain in 50 years to develop an atlas of neural connections.
“This the first time modern technology has been used to explore the brain of this amazing animal, and we proposed 145 new connections and pathways, more than 60 per cent of which are linked to the vision and motor systems,” Dr Chung said.
“The modern cephalopods, a group including octopus, cuttlefish and squid, have famously complex brains, approaching that of a dog and surpassing mice and rats, at least in neuronal number.
“For example, some cephalopods have more than 500 million neurons, compared to 200 million for a rat and 20,000 for a normal mollusc.”
Some examples of complex cephalopod behaviour include the ability to camouflage themselves despite being colourblind, count, recognise patterns, problem solve and communicate using a variety of signals.
“We can see that a lot of neural circuits are dedicated to camouflage and visual communication. Giving the squid a unique ability to evade predators, hunt and conspecific communicate with dynamic colour changes.”
Dr Chung said the study also supported emerging hypotheses on convergent evolution — when organisms independently evolve similar traits — of cephalopod nervous systems with parts of the vertebrate central nervous system.
“The similarity with the better-studied vertebrate nervous system allows us to make new predictions about the cephalopod nervous system at the behavioural level,” he said.
“For example, this study proposes several new networks of neurons in charge of visually-guided behaviours such as locomotion and countershading camouflage — when squid display different colours on the top and bottom of their bodies to blend into the background whether they are being viewed from above or below.”
The team’s ongoing project involves understanding why different cephalopod species have evolved different subdivisions of the brain.
“Our findings will hopefully provide evidence to help us understand why these fascinating creatures display such diverse behaviour and very different interactions.”
The study involved using techniques such as MRI on the brain of the reef squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, and was published in the journal iScience.
This video is called TRILOGY OF LIFE – Walking with Dinosaurs – “Ramphorhynchus“.
By John Pickrell, January 27, 2020 at 5:00 am:
A squid fossil offers a rare record of pterosaur feeding behavior
A tooth embedded in a squid fossil tells a story of a battle at sea with the flying reptile
A fossil of a squid with a pterosaur tooth embedded in it offers extraordinary evidence of a 150-million-year-old battle at sea. While many pterosaur fossils containing fish scales and bones in their stomachs have revealed that some of these flying reptiles included fish in their diet, the new find from Germany is the first proof that pterosaurs also hunted squid.
The fossil was excavated in 2012 in the Solnhofen Limestone, near Eichstätt in Bavaria, where many Jurassic Period fossils of pterosaurs, small dinosaurs and the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, have been found. The region’s environment at the time was something like the Bahamas today, with low-lying islands dotting shallow tropical seas.
The embedded tooth fits the right size and shape for the pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus, paleontologists report online January 27 in Scientific Reports. They argue that the tooth was left by a pterosaur that swooped to the ocean surface to snap up the 30-centimeter-long squid from the extinct Plesioteuthis genus, but was unsuccessful, possibly because the squid was too large or too far down in the water column for the predator to manage.
“The Plesioteuthis squid wrestled it off and escaped, breaking at least one tooth off the pterosaur, which became lodged in [the squid’s] mantle,” says Jordan Bestwick, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester in England. “This fossil is important in helping us understand the dietary range of Rhamphorhynchus, and tells us about its hunting behavior.”
The fossil itself is unique, according to pterosaur researcher Taíssa Rodrigues at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Vitorio, Brazil, who was not involved in the study. “It is very rare to find predator-prey interactions that include pterosaurs,” she says. “In the few cases we do have, pterosaurs were the prey of large fish. So it is great to see this the other way around.”
Paleontologist Michael Habib of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles says he suspects the squid was far too large for the pterosaur to haul out of the water. “The pterosaur was lucky that the tooth broke off,” says Habib, who was not involved with the study. “A squid of that size could probably have pulled it under.”
This 22 June 2019 video says about itself:
Amazing close-up footage of elusive giant squid
Scientists get a rare close encounter with a giant squid in the Gulf of Mexico. The monster of the deep comes in for a closer look at their underwater camera. It’s estimated this particular specimen was up to 3.7 metres long. Report by Jeremy Barnes.
From National Geographic:
Watch first-ever video of a giant squid in U.S. waters
NOAA scientists filmed the 10- to 12-foot squid in the the Gulf of Mexico
By Jill Langlois
PUBLISHED
When Edie Widder saw the giant squid come into view for the first time, its tentacles splayed as it tried to attack the electronic jellyfish lure in front of the underwater camera, she felt a sense of vindication.
After years of trying to develop ways to observe deep-sea animals, the CEO and senior scientist at the Florida-based Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA), had finally figured out the key. The special camera system she developed, called Medusa, emits a red light invisible to most creatures living in “midnight zone,” some 3,280 feet below the ocean’s surface, where it’s pitch black.
This 17 May 2019 video shows five common squid, four males, one female dancing around sticks put there by divers. At the end of the video, the female deposits eggs on one of the sticks.
Diver Mirjam van der Sanden made this video in the Oosterschelde estuary in the Netherlands.
This video says about itself:
Rare Footage of a Sperm Whale Hunting a Squid
For decades, scientists and filmmakers have been trying to capture footage of the world’s largest active predator hunting 3,000 feet below the surface, deep in the dark depths of the ocean. Witness a sperm whale echolocate its prey with intense clicking and then successfully hunt down what is believed to be a squid.
This 19 November 2018 video is called A video of color changes in squid Doryteuthis pealeii.
Aka the longfin inshore squid. The species about which this recent research has been done.
From the Marine Biological Laboratory in Chicago in the USA:
Elegant interplay of coloration strategies is discovered in squid‘s smart skin
March 6, 2019
In the blink of an eye, the squid’s “smart skin” switches color and pattern for the purpose of camouflage or sexual signaling, a virtuosic display that has long fascinated scientists. Now, collaborators from Northeastern University and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) report a paradigm-shifting discovery in how specialized organs in squid skin, called chromatophores, contribute to the feat via an elegant interplay of pigmentary action and structural coloration. Their study, which brings bio-inspired engineers ever closer to building smart skin, is published in Nature Communications.
“People have been trying to build devices that can mimic cephalopod color change for a long time by using off-the-shelf components,” says Leila Deravi, an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern, whose lab led the study. “Nobody has come anywhere near the speed and sophistication of how they actually work.”
Deravi and MBL Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon, a leading expert on camouflage in cephalopods (squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish), led an interdisciplinary team of researchers to investigate squid dynamic coloration on a molecular level.
Squid skin contains two types of structures that manipulate light to produce various colors. The chromatophores contain elastic sacs of pigment that stretch rapidly into discs of color when the muscles around them contract. When light strikes the pigment granules, they absorb the majority of the wavelengths and reflect back only a narrow band of color.
Deeper in the skin, cells called iridophores reflect all the light that hits them. By scattering this light, a method known as structural coloration, they bounce back a bright sheen of iridescence.
For decades, all available data had indicated that these separate structures could only produce one type of coloration or the other: pigmentary or structural. But when co-author and MBL researcher Stephen L. Senft looked closely at the squid chromatophores, he spotted iridescence shimmering in perfect alignment with the pigment.
“In that top layer, embedded into the chromatophore organ, is structural coloration,” says Hanlon. “No one had found anything like that.”
Hanlon, who has spent the better part of four decades studying cephalopod biology, went back through his old Kodachrome slides of chromatophores. Sure enough, he found a photograph of blue iridescence reflecting from a chromatophore. At the time, he had assumed the shimmering blue was from an iridophore deeper in the skin.
“I saw this in 1978, and I didn’t realize what I was looking at,” Hanlon says. “It’s incredible.”
This time, the researchers are sure the iridescence is coming from the chromatophore. The team (including MBL scientists Alan M. Kuzirian and Joshua C. Rosenthal as well as scientists from MIT and the University of New Hampshire) found the proteins that create iridescence, appropriately known as reflectins, in the cells surrounding the pigment sacs.
This unexpected discovery — that the chromatophore is using both pigmentary and structural coloration to create its dynamic effects — opens up new opportunities for biologists and chemists alike.
“We kind of broke up the known paradigm of how the skin works in the cephalopod world,” Hanlon says.
Biologists like Hanlon can use this new information to better understand these fascinating species. Applied chemists like Deravi can use it to work on reverse-engineering the color-change abilities of cephalopods for human use.
“We’re piecing together a roadmap, essentially, for how these animals work,” Deravi says. “Our ultimate goal is to try to create something like a material, a wearable device, a painting or a coating, that can change color very quickly like these animals do.
“It’s not as far-fetched of a goal today as it was even three years ago.”
This 2018 video says about itself:
The bobtail squid is an underwater delicacy for many predators, so the creature found a handy superpower to stay alive: invisibility.
This squishy species is no bigger than a golf ball, making the squid a tasty mouthful for any hungry hunter that feeds along the coastal waters of Hawaii. To avoid becoming a snack, the bobtail squid has formed a powerful alliance with a luminous bacteria called Vibrio fischeri.
The bacteria reside inside a “light organ” on the underside of the squid, and at nighttime, these tiny tenants will glow to match the pattern of moonlight coming from above. This helps mask the silhouette of the squid, rendering them “invisible” to predators from below.
Ed Yong talks with Margaret McFall-Ngai and Edward Ruby from the University of Hawaii, who have been studying the partnership between the bobtail squid and its glowing microbes for years. A spectacular feature of this symbiosis is that squid aren’t born with a complete light organ—the bacteria help build it!
From the University of Connecticut in the USA:
A little squid sheds light on evolution with bacteria
January 7, 2019
Summary: Researchers have sequenced the genome of a little squid to identify unique evolutionary footprints in symbiotic organs, yielding clues about how organs that house bacteria are especially suited for this partnership.
Bacteria, which are vital for the health of all animals, also played a major role in the evolution of animals and their tissues. In an effort to understand just how animals co-evolved with bacteria over time, researchers have turned to the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes.
In a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers, led by UConn associate professor of molecular and cell biology Spencer Nyholm, sequenced the genome of this little squid to identify unique evolutionary footprints in symbiotic organs, yielding clues about how organs that house bacteria are especially suited for this partnership.
The first squid genome was sequenced by Nyholm, along with Jamie Foster of the University of Florida, Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna, and Mahdi Belcaid of the University of Hawaii. The team found several surprises, for instance, that the Hawaiian bobtail squid’s genome is 1.5 times the size of the human genome.
By comparing the genome of E. scolopes to its cousin, the octopus, the researchers show that the common ancestor of both the octopus and the Hawaiian bobtail squid went through a major genetic makeover, reorganizing and increasing the genome size. This “upgrade” likely gave the cephalopods opportunities for increased complexity, including new organs like the ones that house bacteria.
“The Hawaiian bobtail squid has served as a model organism for studying symbiosis for over 30 years,” notes Nyholm. “Having the genome will help researchers who study these interactions, as well as those studying diverse areas of biology, such as animal development and comparative evolution.”
Many animals have organs that house bacteria. The human gut houses trillions of bacteria that play important roles in digestion, immune function, and overall health. Understanding how these relationships are maintained by identifying genes that help animals cooperate with bacteria lays the groundwork for furthering knowledge of the human body. The Hawaiian bobtail squid is an excellent model for identifying these genes because of its symbiotic relationships with beneficial microbes, and its use by a number of scientists to study communication between bacteria and animals.
The Hawaiian bobtail squid has two different symbiotic organs, and researchers were able to show that each of these took different paths in their evolution. This particular species of squid has a light organ that harbors a light-producing, or bioluminescent, bacterium that enables the squid to cloak itself from predators. At some point in the past, a major “duplication event” occurred that led to repeat copies of genes that normally exist in the eye. These genes allowed the squid to manipulate the light generated by the bacteria.
Another finding was that in the accessory nidamental gland, a female reproductive organ, there was an enrichment of genes that are “orphan genes” or genes that have only been found in the bobtail squid and not in other organisms.
“Squid and octopus showed very unique genome structure, unlike in any other animals,” says Simakov, “corroborating previous reports of their unusual nature and complexity.”
Foster notes that teasing out these unusual and complex details is directly applicable to the study of other bacteria/animal relationships.
“Microbes are major drivers of the evolution of animals and their tissues,” she says. “The results of our study have helped identify the ‘origin story’ of those tissues that house an animal’s microbes, and will help tease apart the genetic processes by which these different types of innovation can happen in animals.”
The molecular mechanism used by many bacteria to kill neighboring cells has redundancy built into its genetic makeup, which could allow for the mechanism to be expressed in different environments. Some strains of luminescent bacteria that compete to colonize the light organs of the Hawaiian bobtail squid kill nearby cells of different bacterial strains using the “type VI secretion system (T6SS).” Researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have now shown that the genomes of these bacteria contain two copies of a gene required for T6SS and that the system still works when either copy of the gene is disabled, but not both: here.
This video, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in the USA, says about itself:
Deep-Sea Discoveries: Squid Graveyard
15 March 2018
On an expedition in the Gulf of California, MBARI researchers discovered a surprising number of deep-sea squid carcasses on the ocean floor. The squid have a fascinating life history, but their story doesn’t end when they die. They become food for hungry scavengers and might change the rhythm of life in the deep sea.
Egg sheets were up to 2.5 m (over 8 feet) long.
The Gulf of California lies between mainland Mexico and Baja. MBARI researchers conducted expeditions there in 2003, 2012 and 2015.
For more information, see here.
Script and narration: Vicky Stein (MBARI Communications Intern)
Video producer: Linda Kuhnz
Music: Amazing Lake
Original journal article: Hoving, H.J.T., Bush, S.L., Haddock, S.H.D., Robison, B.H. (2017). Bathyal feasting: post-spawning squid as a source of carbon for deep-sea benthic communities. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 284: 20172096.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 