Quote:

---

it’s Cephalopod Awareness Days!

Cephalopod Awareness Days are organized around the number of limbs of these charming molluscs:

October 8 – Octopus Day, for all the eight-armed species
October 9 – Nautilus Night, a time for all the lesser-known extant cephalopods
October 10 – Squid Day/Cuttlefish Day, or Squittleday, covering the tentacular species
October 11 – Kraken Day, for all the fantastical cephalopods of myth, movies, literature and legend. Cthulhu fthagn!
October 12 – Fossil Day (to coincide with National Fossil Day), for all the incredible suckers that have gone extinct but left an impression with us.

Cephalopod Awareness Day was established in 2007 by members of TONMO, The Octopus News Magazine Online forum. While not (yet) an event proclaimed by any official governing body, Cephalopod Awareness Day was meant to bring attention to the diversity, conservation and biology of the world’s cephalopods. The date of October 8 was chosen as an auspicious occasion for appreciating animals with a combination of 8 or 10 appendages. Octopus have eight arms while squid and cuttlefish have eight arms and two tentacles. So the eighth day of the tenth month seemed like the best choice. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2012/10/10/noadi-cephal
opod-affection/]
We've already missed most of the Cephalopod Awareness Days, so I'll try to catch us up:

Quote:

---

October 8: Greetings Blogophiles! It’s finally here, October 8th, the first day of International Cephalopod Awareness Days (ICAD)! Because it is the 8th and octopuses have eight arms, today is Octopus Day!! Be aware of them. I really like octopuses, but as a paleontologist, I almost never get to see them.


This is an Octopus, be aware of it. It is aware of you. Photo by Trish Weaver



Cephalopods have the biggest noggins among invertebrates. Squid come equipped with big optic lobes, which help them hone in on prey, for example. Plus, these tentancled swimmers have the largest nerve cells of any animals.

Squid are also the speediest marine invertebrates, getting up to more than 25 mph using jet propulsion. After water goes into the squid's body, it squeezes it out with its strong muscles and propels itself.

Octopuses, which have nine brains and can be trained to do various tasks, are 90 percent muscle.




Cuttlefish

They're blue blooded. Not in the bourgeois, 1 percenter sense of the word, though. These creatures really do have blue bood. That's because the oxygen-binding protein in their blood, hemocyanin, is blue.

And pirates. In a video that recently went viral, an octopus holds a cat shark back while making off with a bucket of bait. Wild octopuses are not the only ones good at snatching up loot.

"Aquarium octopuses are notorious for their ability to pick the most sophisticated locks and latches and make midnight snack raids in neighboring exhibits," according to the Shedd Aquarium blog. Yum yum.Lots more beautiful photos, videos and information at http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/cephalopod-awesomeness/?utm_
medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews&pid=5048 9: Cephalopod Awareness Days: Nifty Nautiloids

Greetings Blogophiles! It’s October 9th, day two of Cephalopod Awareness Days. Today is nautiloids and other lesser known cephalopods. Most of you are probably already aware of nautiloids, they show up as jewelry, as table decorations and for all you math enthusiasts, the shell of the chambered nautilus is frequently used as an example of Euclid’s golden ratio. It is good to be aware of nautiloids.

Extant chambered nautilus. Please note its many arms, they’re just one of its many charms. Photo by Rofanator on Flickr


A paper nautilus is really an octopus. Photo by NOAA Photo Library on Flickr.

Here are some fast facts:

Nautiloids flourished in the Paleozoic but only a few species are alive today.
Extant Nautiloids live in deep water, usually 100-500 meters deep.
Nautilus has ~90 arms or tentacles, which have ridged surfaces instead of sucker discs.
Nautiluses can live over 20 years
Extant nautiluses do not have ink sacs
The paper nautilus is not a nautiloid. It is technically and taxonomically an octopus. Its “shell” is really a brood chamber.
The beaks or jaws of nautiloids are preserved as fossils called rhyncholites (the upper jaw) and conchorhynchs (the lower jaw). http://naturalsciencesresearch.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/cephalopod-awa
reness-days-nifty-nautiloids/, October 10th, is the day we celebrate the cephalopods with ten appendages; squid and cuttlefish. Woo Hoo! Finally a subject I actually do research on. Because of that, I celebrate squid and cuttlefish almost daily.


Sepia apama with extended papillae above its eyes. Photo: ©Roger T. Hanlon.

So, squid and cuttlefish; most people are aware of squid. They show up in our lives as calamari (yes, I am hungry) or as bait. If you happen to be training to become a neurosurgeon you would practice your skills on squid axons because they are much thicker than axons in the human brain, yet they are morphologically and functionally similar. Squid axons are also being used to study the role environmental toxins may play in Parkinson’s disease.

People tend to be less aware of cuttlefish. But that doesn’t mean they are any less interesting. If you’ve never seen “Kings of Camouflage” on PBS, I highly recommend you take the hour to watch it. You’ll be glad you did.


Sepioteuthis sepioidea, contorting its arms for camouflage. Photo: ©Roger T. Hanlon

Here are some fast facts:

Both squid and cuttlefish have eight arms and two tentacles

Both squid and cuttlefish have internal shells. Squid have a gladius, or pen, which in extant squid is made of chitin. Cuttlefish have a cuttlebone, made of the mineral aragonite and chitin.

Squid can and do inhabit very deep water. Because of their mineralized cuttlebones and other factors cuttlefish generally live in shallower waters. If they were to dive too deep too rapidly their cuttlebones would break under the pressure.

Cuttlebones are given to pet birds as a source of calcium.

Both squid and cuttlefish can move using jet propulsion. Some species of squid are even known to fly for short distances.

Both squid and cuttlefish have chromatophores in their skin that allow them to rapidly change color.

Artists once used cuttlefish ink as sepia.

Most squid are no more than 6 meters long, however the giant squid (Architeuthis dux) and the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) are much longer, up to ~14 meters.

The largest colossal squid ever documented weighed in at 495 kilograms which is over 1000 lbs.

Cuttlefish range in size from 15 cm to 25 cm. The largest species, can be up to 50 cm in mantle length and over 10.5 kg in weight.

Cuttlefish are not found of the coast of the Americas today, but we do find fossil “cuttlebones” of extinct cuttlefish-like critters in Eocene sediments of North Carolina.More at http://naturalsciencesresearch.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/cephalopod-awa
reness-days-cuttling-up-to-cuttlefish-and-squid/

---

Too long already, so I'll catch us up on Oct. 11 tomorrow...bet you can't wait!

Quote:

---

Sometimes the easiest way to spark discussion about science is to bring it into everyday situations – like by wearing it as jewellery.

Steampunk cephalopod by Noadi.

Noadi is doing contests and giveaways on her blog for a couple of more days featuring her fun (and just a bit sinister) tentacles creations. I can’t see how any of these would fail to spark a conversation at the grocery, in the lab, at holiday dinners, or when waiting in line to cast a ballot.

Deep Space Nautilus


While many of her creations have bright colours, I love how the greys and metallics look on the soft twisting forms.


A custom piece , part of a steampunk series


Fire bad! Frankencuttlefish helps you grab more Hallowe'en candy http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2012/10/10/noadi-cephal
opod-affection/

---

Quote:

---

Greetings Blogophiles! We are more than halfway through Cephalopod Awareness Week! Feeling any more aware? Today, October 11th, we spend the day telling tall tales and conjuring cephalopod related beasties. What fun!

The Cthulhu is a fictional entity created by H.P. Lovecraft in 1928 for a story called “Call of the Cthulhu,” and no, I can’t pronounce it either. The Cthulhu was a beast with an octopus-like head, a humanoid body and dragon-like wings. I have never read this story but, from its description, The Cthulu is definitely a cephalopod-like beast and one should be aware of it.


The mythical beast Chtulhu. Photo by Brett Jordan on Flickr

Our next mythical cephalopod is the Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus. This is one of my favorite hoaxes on the internet and is, for my mind, a very clever idea. The Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus was created by Lyle Zapato in 1998 and has a whole campaign around saving this mythical beast.


The tree octopus is endangered and rarely captured on film. This one was so frightened by being photographed it turned itself into plastic. Photo by Dru on Flickr

Finally we come to my favorite of all cephalopod related myths and legends, The Kraken! Krakens are legendary sea monsters that live off the coast of Norway and Greenland and, again, from their descriptions are most definitely cephalopods. For more legends about cephalopods please visit the TONMO website.


Krakens, even when released, are not sociable creatures. Photo by Kousto on Flickr
http://naturalsciencesresearch.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/cephalopod-awa
reness-days-monkeying-with-myths-and-legends/

---