The OctoPost:
Hello, dear readers! I took a newsletter vacation in January, and now I’m back with a vengeance with a squid trumpet. Cephalopod News If squid could speak...
The OctoPost: Bats and Jellies
Cephalopod News Big news about vampire squid! Their Japanese name "koumori-dako" means "bat-octopus," which is objectively better and I'll be using it from...
The OctoPost: New Comic Book Edition & Conference Notes
I just got back from the Cephalopod International Advisory Council (CIAC, pronounced “kayak”) meeting in Okinawa, Japan. The trip was amazing and exhausting;...
OctoPost CORRECTION: Sperm Whales Eat Giant Squid
…not the other way around. This month’s OctoPost erroneously described a video of a sperm whale eating a giant squid as a giant squid eating a sperm whale. A...
The OctoPost: Happy World Octopus Day!
Cephalopod News October 8th is World Octopus Day, and the octopuses have given us plenty to talk about! The full scope of octopus arm flexibility during...
The OctoPost: Mining for Squid and Plant-Based Octopus
Happy Cephalopod Week, Science Friday’s annual celebration of our suckered pals! Several friends (thank you, K and Cherilyn) tipped me off that Monarchs of...
The OctoPost: Feet, Comic-Con, and a Software Life Cycle
Three-way live drawing workshop at Comic-Con. Photo by Kathryn Gonzalez, edited by me. Cephalopod News By recording detailed 3D video of the “Octopus Garden”...
The OctoPost: Hypercolor Squid, Octopus Taste, and The Bored Book
Cephalopod News I often compare octopus suckers to human fingers. They’re small appendages on one’s arms, which are great at sensing and manipulating the...
The OctoPost: Octo-Boom & Slug Ink
Cephalopod News In the Animal Adaptation Olympics (which I’ve just made up), cephalopods walk off with the gold in camouflage. Every. Single. Time. But in...
The OctoPost: Babies, Baroque, and Kidney Worms
Cephalopod News Here’s the cephalopod video everyone is talking about: Colossal Squid, 1st Live Observation. It’s a beautiful baby of one of the largest...
The OctoPost: Shark Riders and Venomous Love
As I said recently on Bluesky, I've been on the octopus beat for more than thirty years and I will never leave it, because they still have the power to make...
The OctoPost: Willpower and Curiosity
Last month I celebrated my birthday by doodling cephalopod prompts. You can see them all at this Bluesky thread, or on Instagram or Facebook. Cephalopod News...
The OctoPost: Stinky Ink, Schools, and a Beanie
I’ve been loving World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. It has a wonderfully whimsical...
The OctoPost: Octo-Talk Tomorrow and Hungry Babies
If you want to kick off 2025 with octopuses (a good way to kick off any new year), here are two options: on Tuesday I’m giving a free online talk (zoom link...
The OctoPost: Gifts, Beaks, and Airplane Eggs
‘Tis the season to share the joyous news that I have written several books, and if you order from Books Inc., you can get them signed, personalized, and...
The OctoPost: My Next Book, and Octopus (Sw)arms
I’m delighted to announce my next book, Tentacle Mysteries: Octopuses, Squid, and the Scientists Who Dig Up Their Secrets! It’s a nonfiction time-travel...
The OctoPost: Brains, Cowboys, and OCTOPUNCH!
Cephalopod News The final winner of Squidtember’s #BestSquid bracket was the big-finned, elbow-armed, beauty-slash-horror of the deep: Magnapinna. As if to...
The OctoPost: Squidtember!
Cephalopod News Happy Squidtember! Started in 2022 by OceanX, this month-long celebration shines a (bioluminescent) light on all the ten-limbed cephalopods...