Cephalopodia - New Squid Discovered!

Scientists announced the discovery of a new squid species this week.

The new species of deep red, glowing squid was living near undersea mountains in the southern Indian Ocean, scientists announced Monday.

At about 28 inches (70 centimeters) long, the as yet "unnamed species" is relatively big.

We would like to toss a few completely unauthorized and non scientific names into the hat for the researchers tasked with naming this new critter:

1. Glowanchus Big Reddicus

2. Hot Tamlus Glowanchus

2. X-Mas Light Squid

NEPTUNE Canada - Deep Water Geek Cool

If you want to know how we spend our time online look no further than NEPTUNE Canada and a series of deep water observatories that the public (that's us) can drop into any time of day or night. We have spent the last few days completely "geeking out" on this project.

The NEPTUNE project also has a sister program VENUS.

"This week, scientists in Canada's British Columbia began collecting data from hundreds of scientific instruments on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean using the largest and most advanced cabled ocean observatory in the world."

The observatory links are here, good hunting!

Guadalupe Island Mystery - Leachia dislocata

The great Guadalupe Island Squid Mystery seems to be solved with an email we received this morning and it looks like we might be contributing to science.

Aloha Annie et al.,

The squid is Leachia dislocata . It is the third arms that are elongated, not the fourth but this is difficult to tell from the photograph. The squid looks (pigmentation) like it is close to maturity. I hope that it was preserved. It is a valuable specimen and should be sent to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (c/o Dr. Eric Hochberg).

Best wishes,
Dick

Editors Note: The specimen was saved, and then thrown out last night as it was sitting in the chefs freezer on board the MV Horizon. The good news is the crew went "dumpster diving" as soon as we called and our little Leachia dislocata has been brought back for science...in the nick of time.

Science ain't pretty sometimes but the crew of the MV Horizon and Shark Diver will go to almost any lengths to help it along.