PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 15. After the sex, the babies. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/after_the_sex_the_babies/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 30.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, December 15, 2005

After the sex, the babies

Oh, sure…one moment it's all long throbbing organs pumping slickly in and out of orifices, and then the next thing you know, you've got a whole faceful of babies and little larvae giving you that evil demonic look. This is what happens after the squid orgies.

While most squid seem to lay their eggs in masses on the sea floor, Gonatus onyx is a deep sea squid that hangs on to its clutch of several thousand eggs, swimming along with them dangling in filmy sheets, occasionally pumping its tentacles to aerate them. The movies filmed from a submersible are spectacular (some are available here). When approached one of the squid clutches began hatching, and several were captured, so they also have photographed embryos.

squid mating

Mantle length is about 145 mm. a, The squid in a horizontal resting position at 2,522 m depth. b, Squid holding a tubular egg mass, and c, hatchlings being released at 1,539 m depth. d, e, Hatched embryos (about 3 mm in length) at d, an intermediate stage of development, and e, an advanced stage of development. The in situ temperature (1.7–3.0 °C) and oxygen concentration (45–90 µmoll-1) were measured using a SeaBird SBE-9 conductivity–temperature–depth unit with an oxygen sensor. Additional visual observations were recorded with a high-resolution, three-chip video camera transmitting to the RV Western Flyer by fibre-optic cable. Assisted by vessel crew and ROV pilots.

That little devil baby is so cute, here's an enlargement.

squid mating

They found lots of these animals because apparently the females carrying the eggs become relatively immobile, hovering deep in the sea, guarding their brood all alone between 1500 and 2500 meters down. That sounds so lonely…and they also become potential lunches for whales and elephant seals.

Seibel BA, Robison BH, Haddock SHD (2005) Post-spawning egg care by a squid. Nature 438:929.

Posted by PZ Myers on 12/15 at 10:50 AM
Science • Organisms • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Welcome, baby squid overlords!
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  10:56 AM
  2. Gawd, I love it when you talk dirty to me.
    #: Posted by Roxanne  on  12/15  at  11:03 AM
  3. With today's LED technology, a string of cephalopod Christmas lights is no mere dream.
    #: Posted by Jim Anderson  on  12/15  at  11:18 AM

  4. #53798: Jim Anderson — 12/15 at 11:18 AM
    With today's LED technology, a string of cephalopod Christmas lights is no mere dream.

    Hey, why not? electronic jellyfish have already been done.
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  11:42 AM
  5. Elephant seals hunt down to 1500+ meters? ???
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  12:03 PM
  6. That baby squid looks like something straight out of the Matrix. Or perhaps a more accurate way to say it is, that something in the Matrix looks just like that baby squid.
    #: Posted by Ocellated  on  12/15  at  12:30 PM
  7. Is there any possibility that they began hatching in response to the sub's presence? IE, "uh-oh, big threatening thing that might eat me, better send the signal to hatch right now?"

    Also...maximum recorded elephant seal dive depth is a bit over 5000 feet...so yeah, they could go that far.

    http://www.sealexperience.com/docs/diet.htm
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  12:39 PM

  8. Also...maximum recorded elephant seal dive depth is a bit over 5000 feet...so yeah, they could go that far.

    The squid are still lunchable, but they have turned a 2-D search problem into a 3-D search problem.
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  12:57 PM
  9. the BBC has now picked up the story:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4530980.stm

    (it was linked on their front page with a picture when I looked just now)
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  01:19 PM
  10. That baby squid is the cutest ugly thing I've ever seen.
    #: Posted by Joolya  on  12/15  at  04:55 PM
  11. The baby is very cute (but then so are the adults). I was suggesting to someone just the other day that, if they were banned from having spider and snail xmas tree decorations, some squid, jellyfish, starfish and sea urchin ones would be pretty. Wouldn't it be great if "glass" baubles were available like that for all sorts of themes. Somewhere I do have some "jelly" toy octopuses, for throwing at and walking down windows or some such thing, but they are probably a little small to make an impact decoration-wise.
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  05:34 PM
  12. I got lucky and just caught a story on The Discovery Channel (Canadian version) 'Daily Planet' show. Squids sure is interesting and the best part is we're only beginning to scratch the (sub)surface of what cephalopods get up to.
    #: Posted by  on  12/15  at  06:23 PM
  13. You should have titled that "Tentacle Sex, the Next Generation." 8-)

    Adrian
    #: Posted by  on  12/16  at  08:02 AM

  14. #53841: SEF — 12/15 at 05:34 PM
    ...
    Wouldn't it be great if "glass" baubles were available like that for all sorts of themes...

    <a href="http://www.warmus.com/Blaschka Sea Creatures Cornell Warmus.htm">The Blaschka Marine Invertebrates at Cornell University</a>
    You can go and see them, but I don't think you're allowed to take them home.


    @#$%@$#%@#$% blog software won't take percent signs in the URL. Each alleged psace in above URL is actually 'percent sign' 20
    Try Googling on blaschka invertebrates cornell

    http://www.warmus.com/Blaschka Sea Creatures Cornell Warmus.htm
    #: Posted by  on  12/16  at  10:26 AM
  15. Very nice. Probably far too expensively made for the usage I had in mind though. Even my relatively small and easily obtained glass animals (including octopuses) from Venice are too precious (and fragile!).
    #: Posted by  on  12/16  at  06:45 PM
  16. It is very good to hear cephalopods can survive after breeding - it always seemed sad to hear that such intelligent and responsive (ie fun) animals live only a few years. One of the news articles say that they end by muscles going gelatinous http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8462&feedId=online-news_rss20 , compounding the feeling.

    Speaking of these articles, they contradict "Gonatus onyx is a deep sea squid". Assuming deep sea means deep and not noncoastal?
    http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/051214_squid_eggs.html for example says " "It's a shallow-living squid for most of its life, but then it dives down to 2,500 meters, lays 2,000 to 3,000 eggs, and carries them around for months," study leader Brad Seibel of the University of Rhode Island told LiveScience."

    And http://www.cephdev.utmb.edu/biogeo/latlong.cfm?CephID=323 have data from 7 capture experiments, with one exception citing catch depth averages between 17 and 37 m. What gives?
    #: Posted by  on  12/16  at  07:08 PM
  17. I have had a rubber squid on top of my tree for the past 5 years, courtesy of an excellent UK toyshop called Tridias. This year I have added a luminous giant jellyfish.

    I'm thinking of maybe modifying a set of LED fairy lights with squid lures, I think that would work nicely. Squid lures are pretty cool as decoration generally, and would also make great jewellery.
    #: Posted by Republic of Palau  on  12/17  at  04:44 PM