Teuthology (SQUIDS) Encore with Dr. Sarah McAnulty - podcast episode cover

Teuthology (SQUIDS) Encore with Dr. Sarah McAnulty

Apr 21, 20221 hr 3 minEp. 256
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Episode description

THE SQUIDMOBILE HAS ARRIVED. Get in losers; we’re talking cephalopods. Yes, she drives a vehicle with squid all over it and encourages people to text her, and we have this encore episode to prove it. The world's most impassioned squid nerd, Sarah McAnulty, gets locked in a basement with Alie to talk about cephalopods, alien DNA, camouflage, invisibility cloaks, why cute things make us bonkers, terrible mating strategies, cute and clever ones and why she is so charmed by squid. Also addressed: Philly accents and the Kraken. And why I am putting out an encore episode from a parking garage.The squid facts hotline can be reached at 1-833-SCI-TEXT aka 1-833-724-8398Follow Dr. Sarah McAnulty on Twitter & Instagram @SarahMackAttackSarah's Atlas Obscura classes, science trivia, book + moreA donation was made this week to SkypeAScientist.comFollow Skype A Scientist on Twitter & InstagramSponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam MediaTranscripts by Emily White of The WordaryWebsite by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn
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Transcript

Speaker 1

Oh hey, what a treat.

Speaker 2

Wow. Okay, first off, my nickname was squid in high school, and I don't really have a good reason. I think I used to wear my hair and like a lot of braids. Maybe that was it, and I did a squid dance for my friends. But squidly is my nickname for high school. The reason why you're hearing motorcycles go by is because I'm recording this in my parents' car in a parking garage at Ucdavis Medical Center. So that was just some atmosphere for you. This is an Encore

episode from the Before Times. It's from February twenty eighteen. Today is April twentieth, and yes, I am in a parking garage, so your grandpa is being taken care of here after sit down an emergency brain surgery on Sunday. So I thought, what better time than to just indulge in an encore episode. I'm taking time to be bedside with him and my family, and so I am dishing you up a hot serving of a great episode from the past. Thank you to all the ologists in this

building UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. You make me want to change the spelling too. Alogists because, Ah, because you're the best. You're saving lives and I'm just a big fan of your work. So thank you. Also to everyone who's sending good cosmic vibes our way. I know we've been getting a lot of that, so thank you for that. So this week, let's get to this episode.

A tweet went super dang viral of this ologist's car, so much so that her squid hotline at one eight through three SI text one eight through three, seven, two, four, eighty three, ninety eight she had sixteen thousand requests for squid facts because of an Internet tweet that blew up and stay tuned until the very end of the episode to hear an update on if we ever saw each other again after we recorded this in twenty eighteen, as well as a fresh secret. So here we go an

encore episode. It's literally one of my favorites and everyone is talking about this guest. Ah, it's finally time. It's the moment you've been waiting months for a Cephala podcast. Oh okay. Toothology comes from tooth, which is Greek for cuttlefish or squid. What's a cephala pod? Met Well, that comes from Cephala which means head and pod feet because they essentially look like a giant, long brain with a

mop of feet glued on. So this week's episode it's all about squiz and squids and squids and octopuses and cuttlefish. They are adorable, shape shifting, possibly alien, creepy alive cartoons. I love them even more after recording this. I would hug every one of them if I could. But first I want to say thank you and give you all an audio hug to everyone who's bought merch at ologiesmirch

dot com. There's pins and hats and all kinds of things and totes, And to all of the folks supporting for even twenty five cents an episode on patreon dot

com slash ologies, thank you for supporting the show. Also, you can give back for no money, zero dollars, just a little bit of effort when you rate and review and subscribe that keeps ologies up in the iTunes chart, so more people see it and say, what's this shit, and then listen to it, and then there are more of us out there to delight in primate butts and laughter, science, et cetera. So I read each and every review every week. It's I creep on them so hard. They mean so

much to me. Just the fact that I get to make this podcast and you guys listen is.

Speaker 1

Like a page.

Speaker 2

CWS says, fantastic podcast. I recently had a dream that I was an uber driver rolling around I'm listening to ologies. I stopped and ali Ward got in my car. I got really embarrassed, and her show was streaming while she was in the car, so I tried to slightly change it without her noticing. I just want to let Peage know that that wasn't a dream. What if we actually did that in another astral plane? Anyway, thanks for the reviews. Okay,

back to squid. Who squid? They look like swim and dicks with parrot beaks and they are alive in visibility cloaks. But are they aliens?

Speaker 1

How do they change color? Can they kill you?

Speaker 2

What's a kraken? I very excitedly met with a squid scientist that I've been fawning over on Twitter for months after a post of hers about squid went viral. What happened was multiple Jabbronis tried to tell her that her squid were cuttlefish, and she's like, I'm a squid scientist, there's quid. So I've become a huge fangirl of her general knowledge and passion about squids, so much that I took a train two hours from New York to Connecticut and back in one day just to spend an hour

with her. She picked me up from the train station and told me i'd recognize her car because it had her Twitter handle and email plus the words ever wonder about squid? Ask me anything octopus two written on the back window. Her license plate reads simply squids. It's thirty nine degrees. I can see my breath. I'm outside new Haven, Connecticut, first time in Connecticut.

Speaker 1

I'm looking for a squid car. I'm so nervous.

Speaker 2

I've been trying to be her friend, so hardcore for months online. What if she doesn't like me? Oh my gosh, I think I see her. This is so exciting.

Speaker 1

Squints. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2

Hi, Oh my gosh, it's meat.

Speaker 3

Hi.

Speaker 1

I getting in your car.

Speaker 2

Oh my gosh, your license might really slate. So we drove around New Haven a little, and at the time she was a PhD candidate and a scientist at the University of Connecticut, but now she has a PhD indeed, she runs the nonprofit organization Skype of Scientist and that connects science folks with all manner of people who have good questions for them, from classrooms to book clubs, and also runs a weekly trivia night through Skype of Scientists, which are always such a blast, and you can find

out more at Skype scientists dot com. There's a link in the show notes. But she also wrote a squid coloring book. I'll link that on my website. And she teaches classes through Atlas Obscura and she's got one coming up in June on animal reproduction that is going to be whot. I suggest you sign up for it before the slots are out. She also is teaching a squid class and scept huh. You can love her. Head to the Lincoln my web page where we will do linkol

Belusa of all of that. But anyway, she picked me up. We drove around complete strangers in Connecticut on a winter day, and we convinced a library to let us record in their basement and we talked about iridescent, bioluminescent sea creatures, crafty cuttlefish, costuming, octopus brains because they're shaped so weird, alien DNA, weird dating stories both human, our own and cephalopod related, and what happens when you blindfold a creature

who is all head and arms. So please get ready to become obsessed with quite possibly the world's most charming and impassioned squid nerd ever toothologist, Doctor Sarah McNulty.

Speaker 1

Do you know that?

Speaker 2

I for some reason, every time I want to say your name, I want to say McNulty.

Speaker 1

Most people do. Yeah, why do I do that? I don't know?

Speaker 3

Phrenetics, Irish phonetics make no sense. Okay, you are a tothologist. I'm a toothologist. Yes, so glad you know that word? Yeah, teuthologist. Do people do you ever say that? Or do you ever drop that? Cash?

Speaker 1

No one knows what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3

One time someone asked me if I was a tothologist, and then again I got very excited, but it barely comes up normally, I just say I'm a squid biologist.

Speaker 2

Okay, you're kind of boned by phonetics because it sounds like you're an orthodonist.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it does sound like you study teeth, and squid don't even have teeth, so the poor things they just have beaks so, yeah, we're hose there.

Speaker 2

So you are a squid scientist? Yes, how long you've been into squid?

Speaker 3

So? I have been interested in squid since I was a little kid, but I started actually working with stephalopods when I was in Right after my sophomore year of college, I found out about this lab in woods Hole in Massachusetts that was working on cuttlefish camouflage and I thought that was like so insane that you could have a career working on the coolest animal there is. So I like basically followed the scientist around to places that I knew who was giving talks and I.

Speaker 1

Was like, Hi, I'm Sarah. Please let me work for you.

Speaker 3

And he was like you're too young, and I was like please, though I would really like to work for you.

Speaker 2

Sarah sent the lab a very passionate letter where she basically said, look, if you don't hire me this year, you're just gonna hear from me next year and the year after that.

Speaker 1

And he was like okay, crazy and gave me an internship.

Speaker 2

Sarah has worked with cephalopods ever since octopuses OCTOPI more on that later in college, and now she works with little credits called bobtail squid, which are an evolutionary in between octopuses and cuttlefish. Bobtail squid are little, they have a shorter, rounded mantle, and they can be these beautiful iridescent collars. They're also called dumpling squid dubby squid because of their shape, and the general consensus is that they

are the cutest things on planet Earth. So I'm sorry, sloths, you've been replaced. Super side note, if you look at a photo of a bobtail squid and simply cannot even or you need to scream or punch yourself in the face, this is something that Yale researchers have dubbed cute aggression.

One hypothesis is that the brain simply cannot deal with that much positive stimulation at once and turn some of it into the opposite, just some negative emotion, which for most people ends up being aggression or screaming or squealing or slapping themselves. So google bobtail squid and then bury your face into a couch cushion and shriek with abandon. It's fine, it's okay, it'll be helpful. What's the timeline

between octopus and squid and bobtail squid. I know that's a stupid, stupid question, but like, what did one come first and then another? What happened?

Speaker 3

So okay, first we had like amanites, and those are those things that look like Nautilus's those like spiral shells, I think a common ancestor of those, We had bellum nights, and those are basically squid with shells like long, skinny cone shells. And then they brought the shells inside their body instead of outside their body, and then they most of them lost the shells completely and some keep them inside.

So there's like squid, like the kind of squid that you eat, and calamari still has something called a pen, which is like a clear, bendy version of a shell. And cuttlefish have cuttlebones, which are these actually birds eat them for like calcium, but they have they're like little buoyancy devices right in the back of the animal. And

then our bobtail squid have absolutely nothing at all. But yeah, so octopuses diverge from squid and cuttlefish a long time ago, I don't remember exactly how many millions of years ago, so they're off on their own branch with vampire squid, which are not either they're more like octopuses than squid.

Speaker 1

What is it, vampire squid? Vampire squid are dope.

Speaker 3

So vampire squid are these deep sea cephalopods that look kind of like a Dumbo octopus if you've seen those, But they're dark maroon red and at each at the end of each of their arms, they have a little organ that has biluminescence, so each of the tips of their arms are biluminescent. And then they have these big spots on either side of their head. They're biluminescent to give the impression that they have huge eyes to make other animals think they're way bigger than they actually are.

Speaker 2

Okay, I just look these things up. Who boy, they're this deep crimson color and their arms are more webbed, kind of like a bloody umbrella with a head. And their Latin genus and species name is vampir touthist infernalis, and it translates to something that sounds like a title to a grindhouse film, vampire squid from Hell. That is what their Latin name means, vampire squid from Hell. Do they have knives and lengthy rap sheets of criminal offenses?

Speaker 3

Not so much, And there are non violent little animals that basically just eat dead shit that falls from them above because they live so deep that when things die above, it just sinks down.

Speaker 1

That's called marine snow.

Speaker 3

And they, oh god, which is quite a euphemism, is disgusting.

Speaker 1

It's just like dead stuff. And they're just calling vampire squids because they're marone.

Speaker 3

They look really scary, so like each of their arms has these little spikes sticking off of it, so they look really intimidating. You would think I wouldn't want to run into one of those, But they're just eating dead stuff and flowing around, so it's not too bad. I think it's more they got more bark and bite.

Speaker 2

There's when you talk about marine snow, there's poo in there too, right.

Speaker 1

Oh totally okay, yeah, okay, why squid?

Speaker 2

I mean, obviously squid are the coolest, but like what illuminated you to how cool squid were?

Speaker 3

So when I was when I first realized that squid were awesome, I was about eight and I was watching this natural geographic like video that I got from the library.

Speaker 2

It was all about the ocean fish, coral reefs, reeves, reefs, not sure, dolphins and what have you.

Speaker 3

But there was this segment about halfway through where they play Twilight Zone music, and then they introduced the cuttlefish, and I was just like, what the fuck is that? You are entering another dimension, a watery world between time and space where strange creatures whose bizarre pounds the alien zone, and I was like, I need to know more about that animal. So in the video, it's doing this like

passing cloud maneuver. So cuttlefish can change color as quickly as they think about it, because each little color changing cell is controlled by neurons, so it's as if you think it, you can change, which is really cool. So they're called chromatophores, and these little sacks of pigment, little circles spheres of pigment that are surrounded by little cellular muscles that can stretch the pigment out like a pancake and then let it release and go back to a

little teeny tiny beach ball. So they can turn these on in patterns. So I saw that and was like this is bananas and yeah. So I had been into dinosaurs, but then I switched over to sepal pods pretty much right then and there, and I checked that video out all the time.

Speaker 1

You're like, sorry, dinos.

Speaker 2

Sorry, Yeah, we don't even know what color you were, let alone if you could change like an LED screen.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

That nat geo video, which Sarah posted on her tumblr, squid Scientistas dot tumblr dot com, shows cuttlefish flitting about doing what's called dynamic displays, so they're blinking and changing colors. There's like bands of black flashing over their body, like if clouds were overhead zooming past you and through bands of shadow across you, so it looks like hypnotic and it confuses their prey. It's bananas. They're like living squishy disco lights. I get why this video is life changing.

When you're obsessed with squid, I think that makes other people obsessed with your obsession with squid.

Speaker 1

That makes sense, That makes sense.

Speaker 2

Yeah, when people are kind of obsessed with cephalopods, do you think it's their huge brains or their dexterity or their instant camouflage if people are drawn to.

Speaker 1

It's probably different for everybody.

Speaker 3

But I think one thing that's really drawing and interesting about cephalopods is that they're really complex animals that diverge so long ago from us that they've come up with all these really wacky cool ways to get around the same problems that any other organism has to get around, but in a super different way. Like you know, camouflage is the most crazy different one, but nuts. I mean, Ilie.

Speaker 2

Even you watch videos and you're like, are it's so fast it's crazy? Are we ever going to develop technology to like give us invisibility cloaks in case we see like someone we don't want to see at costco or something. Yeah.

Speaker 3

One thing that is really really hard to figure out is how cephalopods look at their environment and then pick what to do. Because it's not as though they're saying, okay, I bet I could do a pretty good rendition of that rock. They take the whole like environment, and then they kind of like say, okay, I bet this would fit. It's like looking for a new piece of furniture in a room, not to match what you've got, but to

kind of go with the flow of the room. But there are scientists working on that in Woodsholl, in that lab that I used to work for, understanding what cues they're using from the environment to pick what to look like.

Speaker 2

And getting back to that stretching the pigments out like a pancake and then smushing them like a beach ball. Does that change the way that the light reflects on the pigment or how does that change the color?

Speaker 3

So ink? Okay, So we've got multiple layers of cephalopod skin. On the bottom base layer. For some cephalopods like cuddlefish, there's this really really white cell type called lucafhors, and these cells never change color. It's just whatever color you shoot at them is the color that they give back to you. And it's like the purest white in the

animal kingdom. So there are grants working to study this to make e readers better so that the back of the page is the whitest version of your eyes have more pigment or more contrast to pick up on words, which is cool. Okay, So that's that's base, and then above that we have a ritiphores and a ritifhors really are the ones that change color, but they change color the slowest, so they can go from like red to

blue purple sort of. And those are changing hormonally, so they change a lot slower, but they're the kind of sparkly urdescent cells. And then on top of those, those are where your chromatophors are, and chromatophors are one color all the time, but you have many different colors of chromatophors all in your kind of palette. So there are like brown ones and yellow ones and reddish ones. So which they choose to turn on will determine the pattern

that you see. So you're using all of these different cell types to amalgamate pattern.

Speaker 2

Is it like a like a TV screen or LED s Like, is it similar to that?

Speaker 3

Or that would require me to understand how LED screens work?

Speaker 2

And I have no idea. I tried to check to

see if this TV screen analogy was whack. I was like, maybe that was embarrassing to say, And then I went down a rabbit hole of LCD liquid crystal display backlit by LED light emitting diodes, but also jumbotrons, which is actually a trademark name and Sony no longer makes them, but LED jumbotrons if those were like chromatophores, And then I found a published paper called Dynamic Skin Patterns in Cephalopods published last year, which said, in the opening graph

quote with parallels to the pixels on a television screen, cephalopod chromatophores, so boom, I'm sticking with it. Don't at me. Scientists agree. Now we have more important squid gossip to address. So I have two pieces of flim flamm I need you like straightaway. I had amazing doctor Christacker on icheologist and she told me that giant squid live like five years.

Speaker 1

Is that true? That squid have really short lifespans?

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, so some squid leap live even shorter lifespans than that. So our bobtail squid, we think, live about nine months in the wild, so really short. And then we think at the long end of things is like about five years.

Speaker 1

If they could live to one hundred years, would they take over the world? Would we be screwed? One would have to assume yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2

The other flip flam I have to debunk is our octopus and squid possibly alien DNA and that's why they're so cool.

Speaker 1

Let's talk about that one.

Speaker 3

So yeah, no, cephalopods are not aliens.

Speaker 1

So here's what happened. So the octopus genome came.

Speaker 3

Out and there's a lot of weird cool stuff in that genome, and they were saying, Okay, there's all this weird stuff going on, like it's wait, really different it's like it's an alien, they said casually to a journalist, and then journalists cephalopods are aliens.

Speaker 1

And we're like a shit, good, no it's not. We're saying like alien like squid did not come from space.

Speaker 2

So talk me a little bit about your work with bacteria interactions. I know you work with bobtail squid, which are these cute, cute little guys, and you study bioluminescent bacteria that lives on their underside.

Speaker 3

Right, So the bobtail squid has this like symbiosis with the bacterium.

Speaker 1

Right, it's bioluminescent. It's called Vibrio fischeri.

Speaker 3

So they have this organ that is appropriately called a light organ and that's where the bacteria live.

Speaker 1

It's really cool. Yeah, what a rig.

Speaker 3

It's an evolutionary like I just shouldn't use the word mind fuck, but it's evolutionarily really really complex and cool.

Speaker 2

So bobtail squid have these two little crips where they house one species, one single species of bioluminescent bacteria, like a bunch of glowing purse chihuahuas, but the purse is your skin and the chihuahuas help you live. Now because it's just one species of bacteria that they have this relationship with. It's way easier to study and isolate than

a microbiome with a bunch of different species. And in Sarah's lab, they're looking at the communication between an animal and the bacterium and how the immune cells influence it, like how they recognize their so called good bacteria. So remember the glycobiology episode with Michelle d'acua where cells use carbohydrate flags to kind of check each other out.

Speaker 3

And we think it's sort of like when the immune cell and the bacterium first stick to each other, the immune cells kind of like asking the bacterium a couple questions, like, Okay, when it comes to lipple polysaccharide, what.

Speaker 1

Do you have going on? Okay?

Speaker 3

It looks like that, Okay, what do you have going on for this protein over here?

Speaker 1

Okay?

Speaker 3

And let me look at this one other thing on your surface. And with this information combined, I can identify who you are.

Speaker 2

Talk to me a little bit about bobtail squid because they do look like a hybrid between a squid and an octopus and a cuttlefish, which is actually how I got to know and gently stalk you is I saw, I saw you tweeted this adorable photo of when you go check on your squids and like some of them are totally okay with the checkup, and others pretend to

be rocks. And it was like one bobtail squid that was covered herself in rocks and was like, no, letna see there, and and then some people tweeted back at you like pretty sure, You're pretty sure it's cuddlefish, and everyone's.

Speaker 1

Like a fuck off, She's a squid scientist.

Speaker 3

Yeah, this happens to me like maybe once a week that someone tries to tell me that my bobtail squid is a cuddlefish. That particular day I had like thirty

people tell me my bobtail squid was a cuddlefish. But I've just like accepted that this is going to be part of my life, like having men tell me that my squid is not my squid, and to be fair, like so there are true squid and like I keep calling them calamari squid, but like I think that's where you encounter them the most, like this long skinny squid. So you know, when I just say, like, look at

my squid doing something stupid. Some people will be like, well, actually it's not a true squid, it's a you should really be using the term bobtail squid.

Speaker 1

And I'm like, yeah, I guess I should.

Speaker 3

When I have this many followers and this many people like getting all up in my business, I guess I should always use bobtail squid.

Speaker 2

And they're definitely not cuttlefish.

Speaker 3

They're just definitely not cuttlefish. So to be a cuttlefish you need to have a cuttlebone. And the cuddlebone is that buoyant. A ragonite is what it's made of, kind of Shelly shocky thing.

Speaker 1

Yeah, And it.

Speaker 3

Helps them maintain neutral buoyancy, so they don't have to actually put an effort staying up in the water.

Speaker 1

But in the water, but the water.

Speaker 2

Every time Sarah says water, I die, I die. I texted her afterwards to ask where she's from out of pure linguistic curiosity, and it's Philly. I love it so much. So this accent is called Philadelphia English. It's the proper name for it, and it's heavily influenced by immigrants from Northern Ireland and Scotland. So how you pronounce water is said to be like the defining characteristic of Philadelphia English.

I find it so charming. So please, when you hear her say water, take a sip of your beverage, rejoice. It's so endearing. It's like sloth baby squid level cute. Okay, back to cuddle bums.

Speaker 1

And if you don't have that, you are not a cuttlefish. That's basic, like cuddlefish want to work.

Speaker 2

If anyone's out there, that's like, I'm pretty sure I'm a cuttlefish.

Speaker 3

Like check yourself, check your back, like are you do you have diff and yeah, then you're a cuddle that's probably true.

Speaker 2

You're a cuddlefish once you have ascertained if you were a cuttlefish. How do you know if you're being a dick on the internet? Okay, Sarah has not only a lot of forgiveness and total compassion, but also kind of an easy test for this for anyone.

Speaker 3

Ask yourself before you correct someone if you're right, and if you are, proceed and say it in a way that's like not hey, you're wrong, just say like I'm not sure, but I think you're wrong, and that goes over better. And also if you get caught out from man's plaining, like say sorry, right, and also if people apologize for man's planning, like let them go, Like they apologize,

like everybody has a douchey moment and they're life. Things can get so overblown so fast online and like yeah, things can really snowball, so just try to be nice to everybody.

Speaker 1

They can marine snowball.

Speaker 3

They can marine snowball. That would be the grossest snowball you've ever seen.

Speaker 2

Whatever your position on eating cephalopods, what is it okay?

Speaker 3

So toothoid squid I eat those are like your calamar squid and bobtail squid are so small that you'd have to they would be like eating stuff mushrooms, Like they're so little, and so I don't eat those, partially because it would take a lot of work, and partially because I've raised them from like eggs, like from day one, I'm like a little weird or squid mom, Like I can't eat them. I don't eat cuttlefish because I think they're so stink and cute that like I.

Speaker 1

Couldn't do it.

Speaker 3

And I've raised those two and they're like clever and cute and friendly and like when you feed them, they like know you and they'll normally like snuggle next to the seaweed. And then if someone that they know comes in that like they know will feed them, that like come out of the seaweed and like say, huh hi.

Speaker 1

I had this one cuddlefish.

Speaker 3

It was like cuddlefish number three or whatever, that anytime I came in the room, he wouldn't just like come out of his seaweed, he would like bob his head out of the water, and it like.

Speaker 1

It was the cutest.

Speaker 3

It was like the highlight of my day every day getting greeted by cuddlefish number three. And when Cuddlefish three got sick and died, I like cried in the bathroom for fifteen minutes. I was so solid because he was just like so cute and so friendly, and so I kind of think like having cuttlefish around is like having a dog around, Like they're wagging their tail and they're happy to see you and they're just like, wow, you're

just the best. And then octopuses are like the jerk cats that are like some of them are nice, some of them are friendly, but a lot of them are just like you know, I couldn't give a shit. A few liver died and that was I've only worked with octopus bimaculoid is the two spot, the California two spot octopus. So maybe it's just them that are sometimes jerks. So I had eight of them in college, and I not like in my dorm room, like in the lab. That would be a cool sign project, but not safe. So yeah,

I would like feed them. So you feed them crabs or whatever you feed them. I fed them crabs and they stack their little crabshells in a little pile, which is like really.

Speaker 1

Cute because they want to keep things neat and clean.

Speaker 3

So I would like come in to clean their tank, and sometimes they would like play with my hands or whatever. I gave them rubber duckies, so they might like pull the rubber ducky to the bottom of the tank.

Speaker 1

Let go.

Speaker 3

Some of them would like squirt me in the face every single day, and I don't know if they were just like playing, like hey girl, let me squirt you in the face. You look a little dry, but that's uncomfortable.

Speaker 1

Let me help you. And others would just cower in their tanks.

Speaker 3

When I was around, I was like, I feed you, I don't touch you, I don't hurt you, Like why are you afraid of me? But maybe a human out in California before they were caught was mean to them. Or maybe they just have good survival instincts.

Speaker 1

I don't know. Maybe they're plotting a takeover of the world. Maybe takeover. That's true.

Speaker 3

There are a lot of stories of octopuses really wreaking havoc in aquaria.

Speaker 2

It didn't strike me until I was editing this. Wait, wait what Okay, the plural of aquarium is aquaria.

Speaker 1

What what?

Speaker 2

Okay? Aquariums is still considered fine, but aquaria is more correct. Also, jumbotrons are typically located in sports STADIU sit with that. Okay, back to how and why an octopus can GTFO your aquarium aquaria.

Speaker 3

You basically need to like make sure the tank is completely locked down and has no areas that they can escape that are way smaller than you think they can escape from because they can squeeze through anything the size of their beak, and their beak is way smaller than their head.

Speaker 1

How do you gotta watch out for that? How do their brains squish? So? Squid and octopus brands are bizarre? They so they're okay.

Speaker 3

So you've got a beak in the middle surrounded by arms and tentacles if you're a squid, so two tentacles and eight arms.

Speaker 1

Everybody's got eight arms.

Speaker 3

And then they're digestive, like their esophagus goes through their brain. Their brain is like doughnut shaped what and goes around their esophagus. So things are just like squashing all the time. So some cephalopods you can't squash them, Like you can't squash a cuttlefish because it cuddle bone is big and you can't squash it. But octopuses can squash through all

kinds of stuff. I don't know if it's like uncomfortable, because like we can do things that are uncomfortable, like right hard yoga positions that we can do, but like flying coach, sure, flying god, that's really unpleasant, but you can do it. You know it'll get you from me to B which is probably what the octopus is trying to do.

Speaker 1

But yeah, I don't know. They it doesn't hurt them long term, I guess.

Speaker 2

And why do some of this squid say they're totally fine with the checkup and why are others like nah, nothing to see.

Speaker 1

I think this is just like a personality thing.

Speaker 3

So just like there are cats that when people come to the house, they hide into the bed, and others they're like, yeh, what up. My name's Rupert, like please me, Like I think some of them just are anxious little anchors and other of others of them are like I've been here the whole time. You haven't killed me yet, like let's just do this whatever. And when I'm raising

the squid, they see me every day. My hands are in their tanks every day, like they get used to the blue nail polish and whatever that comes along with me. Although I think they're colorblind, so they probably don't know that my nail polish is blue.

Speaker 1

They're color blind, but they have chromatophores. Yeah, how wacky is that? So I don't know.

Speaker 3

I think octopus are colorblind, but I like wouldn't bet my life on that. I'm sure that cuddlefish are. So they can only see like tones of green, we think, which, how the hell do they figure out what to do?

Speaker 1

We don't know. There was this proposed experiment.

Speaker 3

Whether they were thinking, Okay, maybe there's like another way for them to see color that we aren't aware of, so we'll just blind them and see if they can change color and match their surroundings, but the scientist didn't want to blind a little baby cuddlefish because that would make you really sad, so it never got done.

Speaker 1

The next time.

Speaker 3

People are like, scientists are just cold hard, they'll kill any like no, sometimes we feel so bad that we just won't do it and won't get the answer. But anyway, I digress.

Speaker 2

You can blindfold them and just be like close your eyes, close your eyes.

Speaker 3

We thought about doing that, but as we mentioned, cephalopods are real squishy, so we were like, what would happen if we like took those goggles that you put on when people go tanning, yeah, and just like stick them on a cuttlefish.

Speaker 1

So we like tried.

Speaker 3

They basically reached their arms back and like pull it off their face. So if you think it's hard to like blindfold a dog, like this is a squishy headed dog that has opposable everything, so like they can just yoank stuff right out.

Speaker 1

And multiples of arms, yeah, like eight of them.

Speaker 2

Side note arms versus tentacles. It's a thing. Octopuses have eight arms, but squid and cuttlefish have eight arms plus two tentacles. The tentacles are the two longer stretchy ones.

With the grippy clubs on the end of them, and the clubs have these circular serrated rings kind of like teeth, so they can whip out and catch stuff, which would be so handy if you were like sitting on a couch and your bag of Cheetos was across the room and you were like, wow, okay, you wanted to make sensual love to someone but didn't want to walk over to them. Tentacles also helpful, And.

Speaker 1

Now what about for sexing?

Speaker 2

I heard that an octopus will just use the end of an arm like a paddle covered in sperms and then be like hey, sensus something and like send it swimming over to a lady like use this, use this and make some babies.

Speaker 3

Yeah, so there. Cephalopod sex is varied and wacky. So yeah, let's just like talk about it because there's a lot to talk about here. So I don't even know where to begin. So in deep sea squid, not all deep sea squid, but this one deep sea squid whose genus and species name obviously is not coming to me right.

Speaker 2

Now, googled and it's Octoputoothus delectron for those taking notes.

Speaker 3

They see each other, So rarely that when they see another squid, like, they don't care if it's male squid, they don't care if it's a female squid. When the male squid see another squid, they will punch through the body cavity and just like stick sperm somewhere in there. What So like if you think you've had a bad date, I'm sure you have, but at least no one literally punched sperm through your abs.

Speaker 1

Like no, and they don't even verify, verify No, there's like, oh, that could be a squid.

Speaker 3

And then it's like, oh, so there are just like male squid getting sperm stuck on the inside female squid against wam.

Speaker 1

Just sounds like a terrible approach. But do they survive it? Yeah? Yeah, God, so I would.

Speaker 2

I would change myself into an invisibility cloak all the time, no wonder.

Speaker 1

I'd be like, yeah, there's no squid here. I got to get out of here. And this is the pits.

Speaker 3

Yeah, the dating scene of the deep Sea is is no good. Uh okay, let's talk about something better. So we've got the giant Australian cut off. This is like my favorite cephalopod tail out there. So these these cuddlefish are like a meter long. They're huge and beautiful. So the males are like, okay, if you can picture a cudle fish, if you've never seen a cuttlefish before, picture a rugby ball with like a bed skirt around the outside, and then like a little stupid face with eight arms.

Speaker 1

So you're there, we're there.

Speaker 3

And now the males have these two big arms that kind of are like flopping down on either side. They're really big and kind of billowy, and they kind of look like someone put on a shirt that's way too big for them, and that's their skin. And they're purple and blue and beautiful and roughly.

Speaker 2

Honestly, with their arms like right in front of their eyes, they look like heavily mustachioed, like Ron Swanson types, or like a bristle lipped cop from an old movie. And now the female of the species is much smaller, and they tend to put on more maroon splotchy patterns, so they're easily distinguished from the ma by the size and the color. Well, most males, and there are a lot of males in the breeding frenzies, which I propose I think they should call them cuddle parties.

Speaker 3

Hey, it's quite a battle because there's like ten males to every one female out there, so yeah, it's a tough it's a tough sausage parties. It's a sausage vest. Yeah. So the big males will basically battle each other. They'll wrestle, and the winner of the wrestling match, which is like hilarious because like watching two like comforters battle is like pretty funny.

Speaker 1

So there, yet there's like flu feed.

Speaker 3

Tentacles everywhere, arms rather everywhere, and the winner gets access to the female for at least a bit of time mates with her, and then the females meanwhile mating with many males throughout this time period and storing the sperm from each male in these little pockets that she's got in her arms, and she's like just keeping her rolodex of sperm ready to go. And then when she actually laser eggs, she gets to kind of pick who she liked and who she didn't like.

Speaker 2

Does she remember? Because I can't. That sounds like the season premiere of the Bachelor. Basically, I guess she does. How does she do it?

Speaker 1

I don't know.

Speaker 3

They're very organized, So Okay, that's already pretty cool. But then you have these little males and they know they don't stand a chance against the big males. If they get in a battle, they're gonna lose. So they got to think of something else to do, so they will cross dress. Basically, they take those two big billowy arms in the side and they just tuck them a la Rue Paul's drag race and no they do. And then they put on this like the modey pattern of the female.

And then they just like swim on over to the female and they're like.

Speaker 1

Hey girl.

Speaker 3

And then when the male is like, I'm killing it. I got two ladies. This is the best day ever, yo, Joe. And then while he goes to talk to his friend, the little male is like ps a dude mates with the female, leaves really fast so that he doesn't get it as kicked by the big male. And then when the female goes to lay her eggs, so she's got her eggs like all back up in the mantle and she fertilizes them one by one and puts them in a little egg clutch on the bottom of the ocean.

So when she goes to do that, like I said before, she can choose who she liked and those males, the little males that cross dress, they get a bigger proportion of the eggs than the big males.

Speaker 1

Why.

Speaker 3

I guess they want to Like maybe the females liked intelligence, Like.

Speaker 1

Hey, that was pretty smart.

Speaker 3

So if we're ever like, how did those stephalopods get so smart, it's like, well, here's one way they're choosing for it.

Speaker 2

So it sounds like the like the worst rom com plot ever. So they're able to change their pattern to look like a lady.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah, So it's all like so we talk about like and I might get yelled after this, but like we talk about gender being obviously different from sex, and you only have gender when there's society, you know, so like we normally we're only like, well, gender is only true in humans because only humans have society. And it's like, and yet if you can cross stress and put on different like cultural patterns and signals of being a male or female, like do cuttlefish kind of have gender?

Speaker 1

Like maybe I don't know.

Speaker 2

I'm not.

Speaker 3

A gender and sexuality scientist. I'm a squid scientist. But food for thought for us to all think about as we go about our day.

Speaker 2

I mean, it's kind of like how US ladies like funny ugly guys. Yeah, totally, You're like, you've got a good brain. Yeah, I don't need a jaw line. That's so fascinating. I always like to ask, is there a movie about cephalopods that you hate or love?

Speaker 3

All? Right? Whale Leagues under the Sea has a giant squid. There are certainly no movies about squid biologists that I'm aware of.

Speaker 2

Are there any sea creatures like giant squid and any of the pirates in the.

Speaker 3

Yeah, there is the krack and one of them. But yeah, we can talk about that because that kraken upsets me. Okay, So, like we've said, cephalopods have beaks, and this kraken when it comes out now, of course, like the kracken is a mythological creature, but the kraken that was the mythological creature we've shown it's probably a giant squid. So I denounced the fact that it's mythological.

Speaker 1

It's real.

Speaker 3

Uh so whatever, soode it's like, stick with what's real. And so the kraken in that movie has like rings of teeth like a shark sort of, but like there's no beak in there. It's just rings of teeth. And I'm like, come on, man, you we have access to what those animals look like. Beaks are scary enough, we need.

Speaker 1

Rings of teeth. What a horrifying What do the beaks look like?

Speaker 2

And where did those come from from an evolutionary standpoint?

Speaker 4

Who?

Speaker 3

I don't know where they came from from an evolutionary standpoint, but they look like sharp parrot beaks kind of, they're like brown parrot beaks. I should have brought them because I have a collection squid peaks, which is something that we don't mention on the first date, which I'm going to tell you a story that I've never told on a podcast before. Yeah, So, once upon a time, I was going on a date with a dude whose name

I shouldn't mention. We were hanging out and talking about raccoons and stuff, as you do on a first day, and then we things were going pretty well. So we were back in my apartment and then we like went in my room to hang out, and then he found a box under my bed. It was like what it was like pretty close to that to like the it was like deep under my head. It was like pretty close to the outside of my bed, and he was like, well, what's in the box? Thinking it would be something that

would be fun for him. But I knew that that box had like squid peaks in it, like squid beaks, octopus peaks, cuddle bones, like dried flowers and like snake skins and stuff.

Speaker 1

And I was like, oh, no, yeah, you.

Speaker 3

Don't want to go in there, like that's it's maybe not the best idea.

Speaker 1

So he was like, oh, that means I should definitely go in there.

Speaker 3

So he opens it up and like, Okay, maybe recently I had gotten some squid and maybe I was like still working on getting some of the squid chunks off of them, so I like had soaked them in this like ethan all so like I So he was like, wait what is this and was like already, like the look on his face went from like this is gonna be a great night to like what the fuck did

I get myself into? And I was like, oh, well, I mean those are just like squid peaks, and I also have some octopus and uh, cuddlefish too, and er and then and he opened it. He opened it and and then he just closed the jar, put it back in the box, put the box under my bed.

Speaker 1

Oh walked out and never talked to me. No again, Oh I was gonna ho I was home. No, say that you're like engaged or something.

Speaker 2

Not even after hanging out in a basement with his chick for one hour, I can very much say his loss.

Speaker 1

Are you ready for some rapid fire? I'm so ready for some rapid Okay, all right.

Speaker 2

Okay, but before we zipsapp lightning round, let's toss some money at a worthy cause. And this week, Hello she boom, it's Skype a scientist. Skypa Scientist has a database of thousands of scientists and it helps connect them with classrooms and families and libraries and Scout troops and more all over the globe. And Skype Scientist gives students the opportunity that's the Parking gradge. Skyper Scientist gives students the opportunity to get to know a real scientist and get the

answers to their questions straight from the source. So you can learn more at skyposcientists dot com and you can also join their Patreon. You get tickets to trivia every week if you do that at the twenty five dollars level. Seriously, Trivia night's great, so fun. Anyway, the donation was made possible by sponsors of mom.

Speaker 5

Why did I call it Scottish cheese?

Speaker 1

Scottish cheese, honey? And I'm not sure did.

Speaker 3

The dogs in other countries speak different languages?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Speaker 4

I think so.

Speaker 3

Well when we get there, well, we've got to fix the car first, but there's someone coming to help us.

Speaker 5

Is it the man from Geneva?

Speaker 1

Not Geneva, he's from Aviva. Oh, there's a van now.

Speaker 4

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Speaker 2

The show, Okay questions yours, let's have them. Lily Massa wants to know what's the deal with squid ink?

Speaker 1

What's the deal with squid ink? So squid okay?

Speaker 3

Yeah, this is this is a good question because I can go anywhere I want with it. So squid inc is it's a pigment that they store in their inksack and they primarily use it to get away from predators.

Speaker 1

So they have two options.

Speaker 3

They could either make this poofy cloud that they just like like a smoke bomb, and then they disappear and confuse everybody and potentially it tastes bad to some fish.

Speaker 2

So the inky like ah, you can't see me leave is one tactic.

Speaker 1

Another approach is.

Speaker 3

What's called a pseudomorph, So that's a blob that they incorporate mucus into the Uh but no, it's it's great, it's okay. I've had it all over my face before because I was working with a squid and it woke up in the middle of me trying to wake it up really violently and just inked me right in the face and it was just like dripping off my face,

and I was like, man, I deserved it. They'll shoot the pseudomorph where they were, jet away from where they are, leave the blob where they were, so the shark or the big fish is like, oh, there is and then attacks the blob and just gets a mouthful of mucasy ink.

Speaker 2

How pissed would you be if you were eating a sandwich? You blink for a second, you put the sandwich your mouth. It's an inky, inky blob of mucus.

Speaker 1

That'd be a real bummer. Your sandwich is like, what aren't?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Speaker 1

Pissed? Pissed? So that's the deal. I didn't know that that's what they used it for. I thought they were they only produced it for pasta. That's true, they also use it for pasta.

Speaker 2

Al Martinez one to know how many giant squids are there? And is there any truth to the old tails of giant squids attacking ships?

Speaker 1

Okay, no, that's the question I'll answer.

Speaker 3

So there are most likely a shit ton of giant squid because we find a lot of giant squid beaks in sperm whales. So we've like tried to back of the envelope calculate how many giant squid there are, and I don't have that exact number in my head, but they live pretty much everywhere in the deep ocean. Now, the reason there's this myth about them attacking ships is that these animals are full of ammonia, which is part.

Speaker 1

Of dealing with buoyancy.

Speaker 3

Basically, and when they die instead of sinking like other squid and cuttlefish and octopus do, they float. And so when they're starting to feel like crap and start to die, they tend to just sort of like go near the top of the water. Yeah, we think there are a lot, a lot a lot of giant squid ooh oh, and they get to the top but the water when they're sick and ships like maybe they'll just like touch the side of the ship because they're like what what year is it?

Speaker 1

Like who are you? Or are you gonna help me?

Speaker 3

And then they're like the sailors like, oh my god, it's attacking. Meanwhile it's just like on its deathbed and feeling like garbage.

Speaker 1

So it's not gonna hurt you. Tell my family, I love exactly exactly.

Speaker 2

John Worster wants to know how intelligent is an octopus? Would it's intelligence level compare it to like a four or five year old child or is it more intelligent than that?

Speaker 3

The short answer is like, Lord knows how smart any given animal is.

Speaker 1

You really, it's like a harder question than you think it is.

Speaker 3

So when you are assessing how smart an animal is and you're not like an animal intelligence scientist, you might think, like, okay, you're kind of judging the animal based on how you judge human intelligence. How smart is an octopus compared to like an age of human I don't know, maybe like a dog.

Speaker 1

I don't know. I mean, I guess.

Speaker 2

It also kind of depends on how sharp your kids are.

Speaker 4

I don't.

Speaker 3

Oh, that's very true. I've ever had a child or watched one develop. I mean, dam so as a.

Speaker 2

Four year old, I got my whole arm stuck in an escalator and they had to invent the emergency stop button for me and another kid whose foot got eaten off.

Speaker 1

So it really depends on Yeah, who's definitely wouldn't happen in octagen No, so.

Speaker 2

Even if it did, it's like I have seven extra I'm just gonna eat this off.

Speaker 1

We're good, okay.

Speaker 2

Christa avan Pado says, are squid likely to be more impacted by climate change than other sea animals? Or they or will they be one of the species it's best able to adapt.

Speaker 1

So squid are doing really well right now.

Speaker 3

But we think that's more to do with the fact that we don't overfish them. So we have overfished the hell out of most fish populations. We started with the biggest fish and then we've been working our way down ever since, so the really small prey fish are doing the best. The one thing that cephalopods generally have to worry about with climate change is ocean is a vacation So basically, when the ocean is acidic, it's harder to build a shell, So that's going to be a problem

for all crustaceans and clams, bibas, whatever. Now, when they're looking at populations in the last like five ten years, all of the cephalopods that I know of are doing really well. But we don't have really good records of fisheries information for squid because back then you wouldn't need to eat a squid because you had cod coming out your ears. So we think they're doing all right. We

don't think they're in dangered. The other nice thing is that they have really short life spans for the purposes of adapting quickly.

Speaker 1

That's great when you produce a lot of.

Speaker 3

Your species, it leads it gives you more opportunity to adapt quickly and evolve quickly, compared to an animal that you know needs to live fifty years before it reproduces.

Speaker 2

Right, so they have more iterations to kind of play a week and yeah, see, oh that's interesting. I had never thought about that. Okay, Jennifer Overbe wants to know. Are squid social creatures? I think we just talked about how they were loaners. She said, I've only ever seen them alone, but they must get busy every once in a while. So with how intelligent they are, do they have a complicated social structure.

Speaker 1

So it depends on the species.

Speaker 3

So some like CPA toothists, which are these like really really beautiful squid that have the bed skirt that goes all the way around, the fin that goes all the way around. They will generally travel in groups of like, I don't know, three to seven ish, and so they're always hanging out together. Humboldt squid travel in huge packs. Now, Humboldt squid are up there with some of the coolest cephalopods.

They're like human sized lengthwise, They're like thick and big and scary, and they've they're like some people have said that they kill people swimming, which I wouldn't put past them, but I don't know if there are like recorded deaths from Humboldt squid, but I would believe it.

Speaker 2

Humboldt squid FYI also called red devils, and they're known to be very intelligent, very curious, and aggressive. So those beaks they have that look like bird beaks, I have more bite force than an African lion, which is a fact I did not need to know, and I kind of wish I didn't. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3

So, And they live off Baja California, and I think in twenty ten they were coming up through, like up to San Francisco. They're huge traveling pacts. They flash red and white to communicate with each other, we think, and they will pack hunt, which is so scary, Like as if one humbold squid isn't scary enough, Like I people who will sometimes dive with them and literally wear like chain mail because they don't want to get bit.

Speaker 1

Could they eat a human? Sure? Why not? Yeah?

Speaker 3

And then the bummer about getting eaten by a squid is that they don't care if you're living or dead. While they're eating you, they will like they have such so many arms to grab onto you that they'll grab on and like start chomping away while you're still alive.

Speaker 1

Oh boy, God, So it's they're very scary.

Speaker 2

It seems like with a Humboldt squid, if they're the size of a human, it would just be like getting into a big skin sleeping bag, like you would just fill their whole guts.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so they might like eat part of you and then drop you. Oh cool, Yeah did you share the well? Yeah? Absolutely, Like anyone watch some of this? Yeah, well, you're gonna become marine snow.

Speaker 2

Mike Ramsey wants to know every once in a while, a strange creature washes up on a beach somewhere and may often be described as squid like but of unknown classification. Is anyone maintaining a database of unknown sea creatures If there's no immediate obvious classification and no easy way to find living specimens, does anyone research these things?

Speaker 3

So? I think a lot of times when things wash up that could be cephalopods, but that we don't really know, Like cephalopods degrade really fast.

Speaker 1

They don't have they're like.

Speaker 3

Okay, So for example, if one of my squid dies in the tank the next morning, it'll already start to come apart if I leave it till the afternoon, Like it's body parts will start falling off, and this is like this is like just in like a tank where there's not a lot of like wave action. By the next morning, if I pick it up, it will fall through my fingers liquid. So like identifying positively a lot of this stuff is really hard to do. So that's

probably why they're saying like unidentified. Yeah it was a cephalopod, but like what was it?

Speaker 1

Lord knows.

Speaker 2

Brian Edge wants to know how threatened are the not alloid populations. They've always been one of my favorite cephalopods.

Speaker 1

Great choice.

Speaker 3

The notolids are in bad shape right now because we keep collecting them for their shells. Their shells are gorgeous and if you cut them in half that you see like these different chambers that the animal used to live in. But they reproduce pretty slowly and they don't produce as much as many offspring per nautilus as the squid do.

So but go online and look up the nautilus breeding program at the Moderai Bay Aquarium because you have these like little baby nautilus videos and they're so cute, Like cuttlefish look like just tiny fully formed cuttlefish, which are so cute that it hurts a little bit, and nautilus is the same way. They come out pretty big and they just look like fully formed nautilus but small with a shell with a shellaby, it's really just so cute.

But yeah, so don't buy nautilus shells because you're depleting the population and we gotta cool it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's three D print some Yeah, sure, are there enough people studying the squid.

Speaker 1

And octopus and cuttlefish.

Speaker 3

There's not enough government money to fund people studying cephalopods. There should be more because they're so dope and we can learn so much from Like understanding how they're doing this stuff is really important for like engineering purposes down the line. What my work is doing is really more about understanding how your microbiome stays healthy.

Speaker 1

But yeah, there's a lot to learn from these animals. It's super cool. Also, octopuses at the pusses. I know you want it to be octopi. We all do, we all octopi sounds nice. At the pusses, you have to say pusses.

Speaker 3

Man. I know it's a stone cold summer, but it's it's what.

Speaker 1

It's the fact of life.

Speaker 3

So you just gotta just get up in the mirror look at yourself and just say octopuses and keep a straight face. And then when you can do it, you've made it. Then then you can apply to be a cephalopod biologist.

Speaker 1

If you can say octopuses, I got a way to go.

Speaker 2

Okay, So what about your job sucks the most?

Speaker 1

What do you hate? Is I mean tanks? Is it? Probably?

Speaker 2

So?

Speaker 1

Probably?

Speaker 3

Like dead shrimp is the worst part of my job because they turn like pink and get goofy and like that's and they smell pretty bad. So that's the one of the worst parts of my job and that's normally what I say. But also, like the worst part maybe

of being a squid biologist specifically is people. And you can cut this if you want, but people will like, no joke, send me technacal porn on the internet, and I'm like, but like, people will no joke, be like, oh, you're into tentacle porn like in college, Like I'm really not, Like that really upsets me because these square are these nice, lovely little animals, like.

Speaker 2

Why, But also, don't send it to someone unless they request it.

Speaker 5

Yeah, ess, Actually someone that really cares about the welfare cephalopods, like God, So that happens to me more than I that's probably the worst part.

Speaker 3

Like I can I can like pick up thirty dead shrimp and be like I had a really good day today, But like any day that somebody sends me squid porn is a bad day, at least a bad afternoon.

Speaker 1

I'm like report, like, no, please don't. What is the best thing about your job?

Speaker 3

The best thing about my job right now is watching a baby baby squid. So when they first hatch, their like the size of the head of a pin, and they'll take down these shrimp called mycens they're about like four times as big as them, and it's that's very cute.

But when they transition from little shrimp to big shrimp, it's hilarious because these little squid that are maybe like a quarter of a marble in size, we'll tackle these big shrimp and it's like hilarious because they've got this huge shrimp in their mouth and they're like trying to

swim and like control where this big shrimp goes. And that means that I can now pay a little less money to feed them, which is great, and it means that they're gonna make it, because that's the hardest part of raising a squid, getting it into transition to bigger shrimp. And if they make that transition, it's like I've done it. Like that's like sending your kid to college. Like you did it. You didn't screw it up. Everything is good, and it's just like so stupid cute. I can't handle it.

Speaker 2

It reminds me of when like a tiny poodle is carrying a huge stick.

Speaker 1

Right, No, it's exactly like that. Oh, it's just like that, but with more arms.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and they'll like stretch all their stupid little arms around the shrimp body and it cracks me up.

Speaker 2

I forgot to ask you entirely. And then how can people get involved with skype A Scientists.

Speaker 3

And basically it's a program where we match up scientists and either classrooms or groups of adults that like learning so that they can have these like thirty to sixty minute question and answer sessions with a scientist.

Speaker 2

Skype A Scientist isn't just for school kids. They just expanded to just adults. So if you're a book club or a library group, you can sign up and you can gather and you can chat with one of over fifteen hundred scientists who have already signed up. You can go to skypeoscientist dot com and you can click for more info. If you're a scientist or if you're someone who wants to talk to one, click the teacher button. So it's also not just for Skype. You can FaceTime

or video hangout. But it was like, I mean, let's be honest, Google Plus hangout a scientist just does not have a ring to it, so they just call it Skype a scientist.

Speaker 3

Every scientist loves answering questions about their work. They're spending their whole life working on it, So just tweet at them. Probably they're gonna be happy that somebody talk to them and cares about their science.

Speaker 1

That's such solid advice.

Speaker 2

I think so many people figure that, Like if you were to tap the shoulder of a working scientist, they would rear back in a lab and say it how to tell you?

Speaker 1

It's nice to know that.

Speaker 2

They're like, oh no, sweet, I'm just like walking through them all And I can totally answer that right now waiting for a smoothie, Right.

Speaker 1

Yeah, totally. I think.

Speaker 3

Yeah, the movies and TV give signed to such a bad rep like we're friendly and like talking to other people. Most of the time, there's no reason to not talk to us. And a lot of times, like if you're studying some weird thing like bobtails, squinson biosis or whatever, like you probably don't think people care some of the time. So like when people do care, it's like awesome, Like, yeah, let'st my favorite thing.

Speaker 1

Of course I want to talk about this. So yeah, don't be afraid of us. Okay, thank you so so much for me, and I'm so excited.

Speaker 2

I mean, it was only like several months of like mildly stalking you.

Speaker 1

That's fine, And where you're gonna.

Speaker 2

Be around it's me again.

Speaker 1

It's such a creep.

Speaker 2

So it should be noted that during this interview we also pause for a moment and we both did our best impressions of squid and cuttlefish dances for each other. Hers was amazing, and if you ever see her or this squidmobile out in Philly and say hello, she says you have to buy her a beer to see her squid dance performed, which is fair. Also, we got locked in this library basement for like five or ten minutes

after the interview. We couldn't get out, which was scary, but Honestly, I wouldn't have changed it for the world. It was a good time. So Internet befriend doctor Sarah MacNulty. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram at Sarah macattack or at Skype scientist. We will link those in the show notes. You can sign up for squid facts that are texted right to your phone one eight three to three side text one eight three three seven two four eighty three ninety eight. I hope we don't break

her text robot. Also her Atlas Obscure class on Animals doing the Nasties in June and the Squidly one is in September. I will link those on my website. She also gives advice to anyone wanting to get involved with squid on a professional level. She says, just start working with animals in general as soon as you can in any capacity, and don't be afraid to do disgusting work. Also, since this episode aired, Doctor MacNulty and I did keep

in touch. In twenty nineteen, I joined her in Hawaii with Atlas Obscura to help her collect a few bobtail squid for her studies. Out there at midnight looking for squid with flashlights in the ocean with her. She came to La. She stays at my place when she's in La. We gave a talk in a park about science. We text pretty much every day. She's become a really really close friend of mine and I love her. She came all the way out from Philly for our wedding, right, Jarrett,

that is correct. That is correct. She was at our wedding. So twelve out of ten would climb into a Cephala podcar with a stranger four years ago. Again in a second. What a gem. So thank you to her for being on the show. And thanks to Aaron Talbert, who admins the Ologies podcast Facebook group with help from Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltus. Thank you to all the patrons for financially making this podcast possible. You really are the enge behind this. That is at patreon dot com slash Ologies.

Thank you to Emily White the Wordery for making our professional transcripts. Caleb Patton bleeps them. Those are up at alleyware dot com slash Ologies Dash extras for free. Susan Hale handles so much business stuff. Noel Dilworth is amazing and does our scheduling. Kelly R. Dwyer updates our website. She can also design yours. Every few weeks we have

a kid friendly version drop. We call those smologies, and Zeke Rodriguez Thomas of Mindgem Media makes those of us and the shimmer in my chromatophores, which I don't think that that makes sense biologically, and lead editor is refreshing this episode. We are in a car again, parked in a hospital parking lot. This has been.

Speaker 1

Probably the hardest couple of days of my life.

Speaker 2

If I talk about it, I will start crying, so I'm not gonna get into it. But but thank you Jared Sleeper. You've been here for days as I'm up in the ICU with my grandpa. So shit, you guys, uh yeah, So thank you Jared Sleeper for you. Nick Thorburn of the band Islands did the music. I'm not crying at all. That's rumor. It's been really tough you guys, duh. But but I just anyone who goes into medicine and

takes care of people, just fuck you're awesome. So if you're out there and you're listening and you're wearing scrubs, even if you just bought them, they look cool, I appreciate you so much, and yeah, thank you for all the good cosmic vibes. It's really knowing that I can put this out as an encore episode and that even that there are five people listening to the end of this is really makes my life so much easier. So

I get that's part of my secret. The secret I was going to tell you is that sometimes I feed my dog's boogers to her because she loves them. But maybe that's a better secret. It's so gross, she loves to eat them. And I didn't even know dogs like doing that until my friend Simone told me, and I was like, I wonder Grammy would line, And she loves them, so there's like freedoms to her and it's so gross, but I don't want to deprive her anyway. Thanks for

listening to this. Hopefully back with a fresh episode next week. All right, please hug everyone, Okay, by bye, pacadermastology, homeology, crypto zoology, lithology, minology, meteorology, betterology, anthology, seriology, something

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