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 natural behavior in the wild has been studied for the first time. The results make an incredible figure that I can’t help imagining as a guide for teaching tricks to your pet octopus.
Congrats to Octo-Girl Chelsea Bennice on this fantastic study, and thanks to reader Max for sending me the link! Chelsea also joined Soul of An Octopus author Sy Montgomery and OctoNation founder Warren Carlyle for a live cephalobration earlier today—here’s a link to watch for those of us who missed it. (Alas, I was busy at the time.)
Meanwhile, the headline “Could octopuses hold the key to curing cancer?” is definite clickbait, but the research behind it is intriguing. A 2021 paper found numerous anti-cancer effects in octopus ink, while a 2022 study showed that a chemical from octopus venom prevented melanoma tumor growth.
My News
Did you know that World Octopus Day is only the first of the International Cephalopod Awareness Days? Yes! October 9th is Nautilus Night, the 10th is Squittleday for squid and cuttlefish, the 11th is Kraken Day for mythical monsters, and the 12th is Fossil Day for extinct representatives.
If you’d like to celebrate these cephalopod days with books, t-shirts, or cards, I’ve got you covered! I also have two upcoming events, one unrelated to Octopus Day and the other specifically crafted around it.
October 10: Panelist on "The Power of Children's Nonfiction" at the California Reading Association Conference (virtual)
October 12, 4pm: "Why the Octopus is the Best Animal" at Ocean View Brew Works' OctoFest (Albany, CA) Sam Julian of Octopolis will be there too, and he made gorgeous art for it!
Funny Pages
I reached a thousand followers on Instagram! I also read a fascinating and disturbing book about how social media is even worse than you think, so, y’know, it’s a mix of emotions. But one big emotion is gratitude that so many lovely people are interested in my cephalopod geekery! As a follow-up to my 1K celebration on bluesky, I found more thousands in cephalopod facts:
![Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social 1.7K followers 209 following 1.2K posts www.dannastaaf.com Author, artist, speaker with a fondness for cephalopods. Books: 🦑 Monarchs of the Sea 👩🔬 The Lady and the Octopus 🐣 Nursery Earth 🐙 The Lives of Octopuses and Their Relatives Newsletter: buttondown.com/dannastaaf Pinned Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1/26/2024 this may be the pinnacle of my science communication career How to make a cephalopod. (With cartoony drawings) 1. Remove limbs. (Smiling human with dotted lines at shoulders and hips) 2. Attach to lips. (Human with flat mouth expression, just head and torso. Arms and legs are floating above with arrows pointing from them to lips) 3. See? It works. (Smiling human cephalopod with arms and legs around mouth. Drawing of an octopus shows anatomical similarity.) ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6m THANK YOU 🤣 this is the balm my soul needs after witnessing the horrors of those "octopus skeletons" in Halloween stores... A sketch of an octopus with an inset photo of an octopus skeleton decoration. The octopus looks upset. It is surrounded by thoughts: Help I'm full of bones how do you live like this My eyes are stuck pointing in the same direction but frankly that's the least of my worries I can't squeeze my mantle for jet propulsion :( This body only had one shape!! My arms are stuffed with muscles to move all these bones Do I have suckers? I don't even care ALT Fishbourne Roman Palace @romanpalace.bsky.social · 2h For #WorldOctopusDay we'd like to share with you this rare octopus skeleton that was found at the Palace. An empty glass display box that, crucially, contains no bones. ALT Reposted by you Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology @sicb.bsky.social · 6h #WorldOctopusDay 2025- Takotsubo and #Optic Glands: The Poetic Deaths of #Octopuses with our flagship journal ICB author Z.Yan Wang blog by Colleen Heck learn more about the extraordinary circumstances of this species death integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/10/08/w... #science Reposted by you Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 14h I love cooloola monsters but let’s be honest this is an antipodean stenopelmatid. Ninos de la Terra Nullius en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammopel... Ammopelmatus - Wikipedia en.m.wikipedia.org Dr Perry Beasley-Hall @pbeasleyhall.bsky.social · 15h Cooloola monsters are weird, chunky insects endemic to South East Queensland, Australia. They're probably related to king crickets (Anostostomatidae), but not much is known about their evolution. The wingless females live permanently underground. #EverydayEnsifera 📸: Visit Gympie Region A pale insect with tiny eyes digging underground. It looks almost like a fat potato with legs. Source: https://www.visitgympieregion.com.au/great-experiences/wildlife/ ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 14h Per my daughter's request, the #Inktober #invertober2025 #SpacetoberChallenge mashup now includes #OC_tober 😁 I'm actually ridiculously proud of this one 🌊🧑🚀 Black pen on paper drawing of a journal cover in the style of the European Space Agency bulletin. Text reads "number 7, October '25, bulletin" and "Ocean Space Agency." There is a little OSA logo like the ESA logo but with a wave. The picture is of two astronauts floating in orbit around an earth-like planet. One astronaut is a starfish and the other is a scaly foot gastropod. Text next to the magazine lists the prompts for October 7: starfish, scaly foot gastropod, space agency, magazine cover. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 14h it's baby 🥹 Dr Perry Beasley-Hall @pbeasleyhall.bsky.social · 15h Cooloola monsters are weird, chunky insects endemic to South East Queensland, Australia. They're probably related to king crickets (Anostostomatidae), but not much is known about their evolution. The wingless females live permanently underground. #EverydayEnsifera 📸: Visit Gympie Region A pale insect with tiny eyes digging underground. It looks almost like a fat potato with legs. Source: https://www.visitgympieregion.com.au/great-experiences/wildlife/ ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1d A quick doodle mashup today for #Inktober #Invertober2025 #SpacetoberChallenge Small pen on paper drawing of a moth with its wings folded. The left wing has two piercings. The dark parts of both wings are decorated with patterns like constellations in a night sky. You know, if you squint. ALT Reposted by you Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 2d This is most definitely *not* the lesser of any two weevils Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 2d Sure we've all seen the man, and the rabbit...but have you ever seen the palmetto weevil in the moon? It's kind of murky 😆 #invertober2025 #inktober #SpacetoberChallenge Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 2d Sometimes the prompts are unexpectedly compatible. I'd never realized before that lobsters, spacecraft, and deer ALL have antennae! #Inktober #invertober2025 #SpacetoberChallenge Black pen on paper drawing of a deer and a lobster riding in the dish of the Voyager spacecraft. The lobster's antennae are tangled with the antlers of the deer, who looks disgruntled. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 2d Sure we've all seen the man, and the rabbit...but have you ever seen the palmetto weevil in the moon? It's kind of murky 😆 #invertober2025 #inktober #SpacetoberChallenge Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 2d Catch-up day 3 of #Inktober #invertober2025 #SpacetoberChallenge Black pen on paper drawing of a bedazzled anemone with swirling streaks in the background. Prompts are written below: "crown/giant green anemone/space weather." ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 5d good news, if you're stuck on the prompts you can just add another one! #Inktober #Invertober #SpacetoberChallenge A simple ink-on-paper drawing of a leafhopper weaving string into a ring around a planet. The prompts "weave/red-banded leafhopper/planet" are written below the drawing. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d I just couldn't stop thinking about how weird sperm whale mouths are and yet how perfectly shaped for inserting giant squid into A scanned pencil sketch of a faceoff between a giant squid and a sperm whale. The squid looks cute and alarmed and its mantle is labeled TAB A. The whale looks cute and happy and its mouth is labeled SLOT A. Tab A does look like it would fit perfectly in slot A. The squid says "I strongly disagree with this diagram" and the whale responds "You can't disagree with evolution." ALT Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 13d I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵) Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d So keen to read THE RADIANT SEA by @stevehaddock.bsky.social & Sönke Johnsen! In the introduction, @helenscales.bsky.social says it's like having the authors "looking over your shoulder and telling stories," an experience I've been lucky enough to get with Steve. Also, COVER CEPHALOPOD 🐙🦑🌊 Photo of the cover of THE RADIANT SEA: COLOR AND LIGHT IN THE UNDERWATER WORLD by Steven Haddock and Sonke Johnsen, Foreword by Helen Scales. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d The introduction also encourages readers to look at all the pictures first, so naturally I'm going for cephalopods. In Chapter 1, glass squids AND glass octopuses get well-deserved mentions. I can't handle it when squid arms are shorter than their eyestalks...like WHAT even are those. Decorations. ALT ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d Promise I won't take pictures of ALL the cephs, but this baby enope is a delight. "They have a couple of years before they have to take on their adult responsibilities, like avoiding being eaten by sperm whales." 🤣 (and now I am distracted because I remembered I drew a sperm whale recently...) Photo of a page of THE RADIANT SEA, with a beautiful photograph of a sharp-eared enope squid, Ancistrocheirus lesueurii. It's a juvenile with just a few chromatophores and very cute. The caption includes the quotation in the skeet. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d It's a mustache medusa! I'm mashing up the #inktober and #invertober prompts this year 😁 #invertober2025 Simple black ink drawing of a sea nettle jelly, except the bell is shaped like a mustache. I tried to draw this four times before it finally came out acceptable. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 6d My least favorite part of freelance life has been a) learning about indemnity clauses, b) pushing back against them, and c) hearing "no one else has a problem with it" 😩 Very soothing to spend an hour with folks in the same boat. Thanks to speaker Dawn Fallik and organizer @ellenkuwana.bsky.social ! National Association of Science Writers (NASW) @sciencewriters.org · 7d Would you like to learn more about the art of contract negotiation? Join us for today's #SciWriSkillsChat at 1 pm ET hosted by the Freelance Committee and featuring Dawn Fallik. Link for today's event: www.nasw.org/events/... Not a member yet? Visit nasw.org/join Negotiating fair contracts Dawn Fallik, a journalism professor and freelance investigative reporter, will share practical tips on contract negotiation. She’ll offer examples of predatory terms to watch out for and examples of specific language you might consider. www.nasw.org Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 7d SO excited for this! My daughter asked me to do Inktober with her this year, so I decided I'll combine the two prompt lists. 😁 Nicole 🪲 @fossilforager.bsky.social · 11d The Invertober prompt list for 2025 is HERE! If you’re looking for an invert-themed art prompt list for the month of October, here it is 🦀🪲🐚💕 #sciart #invertober #invertober2025 Invertober 2025 1. Japanese sea nettle (Chrysaora pacifica) 2. Red-banded leafhopper (Graphocephala coccinea) 3. Giant green anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) 4. Palmetto weevil (Rhynchophorus cruentatus) 5. Painted spiny lobster (Panulirus versicolor) 6. Buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) 7. Scaly foot gastropod (Chrysomallon squamiferum) 8. Bee-killer robber fly (Mallophora fautrix) 9. Flamboyant cuttlefish (Ascarosepion pfefferi) 10. Common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) 11. Dark fishing spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus) 12. Pacific razor clam (Siliqua patula) 13. Banded sugar ant (Camponotus consobrinus) 14. Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) 15. Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae) 16. Giant isopod (Bathynomus giganteus) 17. Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros concinnus) 18. Black & yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) 19. Vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) 20. By-the-wind sailor (Velella velella) 21. Flame skimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) 22. Sea angel (Clione limacina) 23. Pink sand dunes tiger beetle (Cicindela albissima) 24. New Zealand mussel (Perna canaliculus) 25. House centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata) 26. Sea bunny (Jorunna parva) 27. American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) 28. Pearly green lacewing (Chrysopa perla) 29. Red sea urchin (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) 30. Christmas beetle (Anoplognathus pallidicollis) 31. Death’s-head hawk moth (Acherontia atropos) ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 8d Tomorrow I get to give a brand-new talk about my favorite things: cephalopod sex and babies! Come giggle with me about explosive spermatophores and sniffle with me about octopus moms 🐙🦑🧪 Tuesday Sept 30 at 3:45pm PT / 6:45pm ET on zoom Tickets here: smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/pr... Cephalopod Life Cycles: From Alien Larvae to World's Most Patient Moms When it comes to finding a partner, cephalopods pull out all the stops. Pygmy squid squirt inky backdrops to highlight their dazzling courtship displays. Cuttlefish multitask, decorating one half of t... smithsonianassociates.org Reposted by you Diane Duane @diane.dianeduane.com · 11d I am the gar I long and thin I have a jaw things fit within Yet sometimes shapes are wrong for head so do my best & lik the bread Eel-AIEEEE (Eli, he/they) @elindur.at.app.wafrn.net · 11d Oh my god, it's him! The gar that licked the bread! A text post from cattycattitude on tumblr. It reads "You're telling me a gar* licked this bread? *a North American freshwater fish of the family Lepisostieidae" The poster replies to their own post with a picture that's labelled "A helpful visual" and contains a gar (A long thin fish) licking a loaf of bread. An arrow then points to a small pile of garlic bread. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 12d 🎉 Happy birthday, Jeanne Villepreux-Power! 🎉 I wrote a biography, THE LADY AND THE OCTOPUS, about this inventor of aquariums, sleuth of octopus mysteries, first woman in many scientific societies and consummate polyglot. lernerbooks.com/shop/show/21... The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology Born in a small village in eighteenth-century France, Jeanne Villepreux wasn’t expected to transform marine science. Curious, creative, and clever, Jeanne ventured to Paris by foot as a teenager. lernerbooks.com Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 12d Jeanne's life story is so wild, I feel like the grandfather in the Princess Bride when I try to sum it up. "Adventures, betrayals, wars, torture (of octopuses), escapes, shipwrecks, true love..." Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 12d I'd been fascinated with Jeanne Villepreux-Power for years, and I'm endlessly grateful to @lernerbooks.bsky.social @carolhinz.bsky.social and @staceykondla.bsky.social for the opportunity to write a book about her. And to include some of my illustrations! ALT ALT ALT ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 13d Squid scientists Clyde Roper & Liz Shea calculated this! bioone.org/journals/Ame... I summarized their results in Monarchs of the Sea, which led a lovely reader to discover a slight error (deets in 🧵), which I shared with Liz, which reduces it to "only" ~2 million giant squid. Eaten. Every. Day. Photo of a section of a the book Monarchs of the Sea, which reads: "If each sperm whale in the ocean were to eat one giant squid a week, more than 18 million giant squid would be eaten by sperm whales every year. But consumption might be far more frequent than that. A single while might even eat multiple giants a day. Scientists have estimated that throughout the world's oceans, sperm whales might be eating 3.6 million giant squid, every single day. One cannot help but imagine a thick layer of whale chow in the deep ocean that simply writhes with tentacles." ALT MattBille @mattbille.bsky.social · 13d Here's the fun part. I looked it up. There are an estimated 300,000 sperm whales. Since most meals are of many smaller squid, millions of squid of all sizes eaten per day. So that's what, hundreds of millions of squid alive? A billion? View full thread Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 13d Add the lowest M & F numbers and the highest M & F numbers to get the range of giant squid noms for the whole sperm whale population, and you get 1.8-2.16 million. PER. DAY. And as @mattbille.bsky.social points out, that's only giant squid! Consider the other 99% composed of other squid species... Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 13d I do want to stress that these are ESTIMATES, based on other ESTIMATES. There's still so much we don't know about sperm whales, giant squid, and the whole roiling mass of mystery that is the oceanic ecosystem. I'm excited to see what we learn in the years to come! Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 13d a) Rebecca's thread is A++ b) yeah ok I'm a squid gal but can we talk whale size... this is a whale for whom a GIANT SQUID is a LITERAL MOUTHFUL c) the footage is rare & exciting for us, but it's just tuesday snacktime for sperm whales. this mama could eat 7-8 giant squid PER DAY 🧪🦑🌊 Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 13d I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵) 0:15 0:00 / 0:16 Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 17d I made a new "finding thousands in cephalopod facts" comic to celebrate reaching 1K followers on instagram! 🧪🦑🐡 Please note these are all informed estimates/approximations. 😁References in thread Illustration of an underwater scene from the surface to the deep sea floor. Depth is marked on the left, from 0 m at the surface to 3200 m in the middle to 7000 m at the bottom. Near the surface, a red squid swims under a gelatinous dotted mass that contains the text "[eggs]." A speech bubble from the squid reads, "Humboldt squid lay the most eggs of any cephalopod: up to a THOUSAND THOUSAND per mass! (Yes, that's a million)." At the middle depth, a group of purple octopuses sit curled up on rocks. A speech bubble from one says, "The largest aggregation of cephalopods on earth could be more than twenty THOUSAND pearl octopuses." On the seafloor, an orangey-pink octopus with large fins says, "The deepest cephalopod ever seen was a Dumbo octopus at seven THOUSAND meters." ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 10mo Hello, followers new and old! I thought it would be fun to find the number 1000 in cephalopod facts. Then I spent wayyy too long looking up sucker counts per arm for various species 😂 Anyway, thank you all for being here! 🐙🦑🧪🐡 A large blue "1K" sits on a brown seafloor. A pink octopus perches on top, raising a suckered arm and saying "A small octopus can have about 1000 suckers." A giant red squid behind the 1K says, "A giant squid weighs about 1000 pounds." A small orange cuttlefish peeks out from behind the K saying "Could there be 1000 species of cephalopods?" A yellow pygmy squid on the K says, "Scientists have named about 800." A single purple arm pokes out from below, with the speech bubble, "But more are discovered every year!" ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 17d Starting from the bottom . . . "First in situ observation of Cephalopoda at hadal depths (Octopoda: Opisthoteuthidae: Grimpoteuthis sp.)" link.springer.com/article/10.1... First in situ observation of Cephalopoda at hadal depths (Octopoda: Opisthoteuthidae: Grimpoteuthis sp.) - Marine Biology The Cephalopoda are not typically considered characteristic of the benthic fauna at hadal depths (depths exceeding 6000 m), yet occasional open-net trawl samples have implied that they might be presen... link.springer.com Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 17d In the middle, "Abyssal hydrothermal springs—Cryptic incubators for brooding octopus" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Abyssal hydrothermal springs—Cryptic incubators for brooding octopus Life is tough in the frigid deep sea, but for octopuses that can take the heat, hydrothermal springs make it a little easier. www.science.org Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 18d @biographic.bsky.social publishes so much of my favorite nature writing, from the epic story behind sea star wasting disease by @craigwelch.bsky.social to creepy, beautiful bites like "Mom on the Menu" by @cestmoilanglois.bsky.social I'm grateful that I'm able to donate! bioGraphic @biographic.bsky.social · 29d At bioGraphic, we publish stories that inspire a deep appreciation for life on Earth—and hope for its future. 🌿 📣 To support our work, become a monthly donor and help us reach 100 new Insiders by September 19 You choose the amount, and every little bit helps: give.calacademy.org/campaign/719... Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 19d btw the origin story of this art was brainstorming with my spouse how to include cephalopods me: Holding a teacup that contains a tiny octopus? spouse: Angel and devil cephalopods on your shoulders? me: Octopus arms instead of lips? spouse: NO. Absolutely not. Do not draw that one. me: 🥹👉👈 Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 19d Thanks to @franzanth.bsky.social for suggesting "cursed" when I was stuck on how to color the circumoral appendages! 😄 Planning to use this as a new author avatar (yes I cut my hair short) Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 19d this is like 80% of my gardening strategy tbh. another 10% is "plant natives" and the final 10% is "let my kids do any necessary pruning to give them an acceptable outlet for violence" Samantha biobabbler @biobabbler.bsky.social · 19d Hence a KEY step to increasing biodiversity in your garden is to BE LAZY. Leave dead plants standing. They can provide cozy beds for tiny creatures!!🥹🥰 Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 19d Thanks to @franzanth.bsky.social for suggesting "cursed" when I was stuck on how to color the circumoral appendages! 😄 Planning to use this as a new author avatar (yes I cut my hair short) Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 20d Ok I'm trying to decide on a color for the arms. A nice subtle brownish or reddish hue? Something striking like blue or purple? Drawing of a person from the shoulders up, wearing rectangular glasses, smiling widely, and giving a double thumbs up. Okay, it's me. The person is me. However, my lips have been replaced with a nice, understated cephalopod arm crown. Eight short suckered arms curl charmingly away from my mouth in all directions. The skin and hair have been colored in with colored pencils, but the octopus arms are conspicuously blank. ALT Reposted by you MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 20d Can you identify this animal? 🔍️👀 Did you get a kick out of shouting “acorn worm” at your phone? If so, you might enjoy playing @fathomverse.bsky.social . This month, you can find acorn worms by playing FathomVerse and earn a special badge! Learn more about acorn worms: www.mbari.org/animal/acorn... Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 20d Ok I'm trying to decide on a color for the arms. A nice subtle brownish or reddish hue? Something striking like blue or purple? Drawing of a person from the shoulders up, wearing rectangular glasses, smiling widely, and giving a double thumbs up. Okay, it's me. The person is me. However, my lips have been replaced with a nice, understated cephalopod arm crown. Eight short suckered arms curl charmingly away from my mouth in all directions. The skin and hair have been colored in with colored pencils, but the octopus arms are conspicuously blank. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 23d please I can't handle the two balloon dogs my son made for me A photo of the author's desk with a variety of clutter and two large monitors, turned off, one oriented portrait and one landscape. Atop the portrait screen is a very loooooooong blue balloon dog with very tiny legs. To the right of the landscape screen is a tiny brown balloon dog with an extraordinarly long tail. Its head, ears, body, and legs are all just little balls, and its tail is ten times longer than the rest of it. It's devastatingly cute. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 24d Happy Cephalopod Week! My latest OctoPost (all the news that's fit to ink!) dives into a new technique for finding very very old squid, with a shoutout to @scifri.bsky.social and . . . plant-based hyper-realistic fake octopus? Check it out! 🐙🦑🧪 buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a... 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... buttondown.com Reposted by you Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 26d This #CephalopodWeek, dive in and join our Sea of Support! You can pick your favorite cephalopod, add your name, and help fuel cool projects like this one. Sea Of Support Help us build a Sea of Support for science! buff.ly Reposted by you Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 25d Did you know octopuses don’t have tentacles? They have arms with suckers that can “taste” harmful microbes on the surfaces they touch. Octopuses Use Suckers To ‘Taste’ Harmful Microbes Researchers found that octopuses can use their arms to detect harmful microbes on the surface of objects like crab shells or their own eggs. buff.ly Reposted by you Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 28d Yo, writers! Come write some bug stuff! Saimi Hanma ⚔️ @saimihanma.bsky.social · 28d I'm working on making partner groups for this and will be reaching out to you all soon! It looks like we have more artists than writers, but I'll try my best to get everyone partnered up. Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 29d Attendees of @scbwisf.bsky.social Illustrator's Day were given a Secret Misison to draw thank-you notes for the three organizers and coordinators, inspired by things those people like. I coudn't resist taking photos of mine before handing them in. Sending so much gratitude to these wonderful people! ALT ALT ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 29d I am SO excited for this luminous literature! Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 1mo Our science photo book The Radiant Sea is out Sept 2nd!! 30 years of research, 10 years of "we should", and a year of collating pix and writing. Sönke and I show (mostly for the first time) images of how organisms produce, use, and interact with light in the sea. #bioluminescence #fluorescence 🦑🧪🌊 Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo One of my favorites! Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 1mo Hi! I have a newsletter. It's free and comes out once a week, not always on the same day. I write pop culture criticism, queer rants, memoir, and interviews with interesting people. It's not the same thing each week, but it's usually something pretty compelling. buttondown.com/charliejane/... Happy Dancing We're dancing because we're happy. Or we're dancing in order to become happy. Or we're happy that we can dance. One of those. buttondown.com Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo I got to paint with soy sauce at @scbwisf.bsky.social Illustrator's Day! It was a fantastic activity led by Laura G. Lee, creator of the gorgeous picture book Soy Sauce! www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/laura... A painting in shades of brown of a bowl holding food (it's cottage cheese mixed with soy sauce) with the word "SIMPLE" beneath it and two very reduced faces above it--just glasses and hair. One has round glasses and short light brown hair, the other has rectangular glasses and long messy dark brown hair (they're my mom and me). Yes, my mom used to feed me cottage cheese and soy sauce and no, I don't know where she got the idea. It's pretty good though! ALT Reposted by you Javier Lazaro - illustration @lazaroillustration.bsky.social · 1mo Cover illustration for the book Nursery Earth. This was a fun one :) Book Author @dannastaaf.bsky.social Published by The Experiment Books #art #digitalart #booksky #illustration Cover illustration for the book "nursery earth" depicting different cute babies of several animal species ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo I'm squeezing a new panel of octopus pee worms into #InverteFest! (I'd hoped to finish two more panels after this one, but August wrecked me, so they'll have to wait for the next round) 🐙🦑🧪 A text-heavy comic panel with a yellow background. Upper text reads, "Dicyemids only parasitize cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish). And each dicyemid species lives only in 1-2 cephalopod species." Under this, a lumpy brownish worm says, "I'm not picky, I'm discerning." A small pink octopus with a blue eye-spot is next to the worm. Their scientific names are written with a heart between them: Dicyema sullivani <heart> Octopus bimaculoides. A blue star advertises "32 cells" for the worm. Below the worm, more text reads "How to tell dicyemid species apart? Count their cells! Adults of each species have exactly the same number--a condition called EUTELY." The worm has another speech bubble: "It's not a condition, it's a gift." ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo I just applied! I'm so excited! #InverteFest Saimi Hanma ⚔️ @saimihanma.bsky.social · 1mo We have an exciting #InverteFest announcement! We're going to create an #InverteFest artist/writer collaboration anthology! Artists and writers will be paired together to create collaborated pieces which we'll collect into an anthology. All are welcome. Apply here: forms.gle/6zHzs7P8kzGF... invertefest image with a blue melibe nudibranch, which looks like a tube with a huge hood and paddles, a pink crab with long legs and a yellow sunflower like invert ALT Reposted by you Joel @snufkinlib.bsky.social · 1mo Of the many writers to predict AI, only Douglas Adams got the tone right Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo Hiiii friends! I'm drawing a sequel to this, in honor of reaching 1K followers on IG--any suggestions for more of the number one thousand in cephalopod facts? I'm currently researching whether there's a cephalopod with 1000 photophores, but weirdly nobody seems to have sat down and counted . . . 🦑 Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 10mo Hello, followers new and old! I thought it would be fun to find the number 1000 in cephalopod facts. Then I spent wayyy too long looking up sucker counts per arm for various species 😂 Anyway, thank you all for being here! 🐙🦑🧪🐡 A large blue "1K" sits on a brown seafloor. A pink octopus perches on top, raising a suckered arm and saying "A small octopus can have about 1000 suckers." A giant red squid behind the 1K says, "A giant squid weighs about 1000 pounds." A small orange cuttlefish peeks out from behind the K saying "Could there be 1000 species of cephalopods?" A yellow pygmy squid on the K says, "Scientists have named about 800." A single purple arm pokes out from below, with the speech bubble, "But more are discovered every year!" ALT Reposted by you Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 1mo Glow-in-the-Dark Succulents Could Be the Future of Ambient Lighting gizmodo.com/glow-in-the-... Glow-in-the-Dark Succulents Could Be the Future of Ambient Lighting A surprisingly simple trick is helping scientists make succulent leaves shine brighter than ever, giving these favorite houseplants a new glow. gizmodo.com Reposted by you franz @franzanth.bsky.social · 1mo Activities for this season of #InverteFest: Community science www.inaturalist.org/projects/inv... Art book submission form docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHk... Writer/artist collab anthology bsky.app/profile/saim... #InverteFest August 2025 What is #InverteFest? It's a periodic online event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you and share the joys of discovery online. The hashtag was conceived w... www.inaturalist.org franz @franzanth.bsky.social · 2mo Greetings, chordate comrades. #InverteFest is upon us. tl;dr: Over the last 7 days every April, August, and December, we invite you to show the internet your coolest bugs & slugs. Go find critters, post your art, write wikipedia pages, do whatever you like to celebrate invertebrates with us! What is #InverteFest? It's a periodic event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you and share the joys of discovery online. #InverteFest takes place every April, August, & December over the last 7 days of the month. Going out? 1. Find invertebrates 2. Share observations online using the hashtag #InverteFest 3. Interact with others who are celebrating the event NOT Going out? - Post your squid painting - Stream a game where you play as a crab with a knife - Selfie with your 27 beetle enamel pins - Write wikipedia pages Questions? ask franzanth / maureenbug / saimihanma More info and ideas on: invertefest.com ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo Frankly offended at the preponderance of arthropods in the replies. Consider the cnidarians (fire coral! box jelly!), the echinoderms (crown of thorns! flower urchin!), the MOLLUSCS (cone snail, giant clam, vampire squid!!)!!!! #invertefest Saimi Hanma ⚔️ @saimihanma.bsky.social · 1mo It's dangerous to go alone....so what invertebrate are you taking with you? #Invertefest Reposted by you Saimi Hanma ⚔️ @saimihanma.bsky.social · 1mo It's time for #InverteFest, BRING OUT YOUR BUGS! Go find bugs, draw bugs, have a seance with bugs but most importantly share bugs (all inverts). We'll have a special announcement soon as well. Plus, we've got this poster in multiple languages on our website! www.metrofieldguide.com/invertefest/ What is #InverteFest? It's a periodic event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you and share the joys of discovery online. #InverteFest takes place every April, August, & December over the last 7 days of the month. Going out? 1. Find invertebrates 2. Share observations online using the hashtag #InverteFest 3. Interact with others who are celebrating the event NOT Going out? - Post your squid painting - Stream a game where you play as a crab with a knife - Selfie with your 27 beetle enamel pins - Write wikipedia pages Questions? ask franzanth / maureenbug / saimihanma More info and ideas on: invertefest.com ALT Reposted by you Siri Carpenter @siricarpenter.bsky.social · 1mo 🧪 Hello everyone! Please join me and others from @theopennotebook.bsky.social team TOMORROW, Aug. 26 at 2 pm ET for a Town Hall event on Zoom, where we’ll kick off our 15th-birthday celebration! BRING YOUR OWN CAKE! 🎂 This event will be recorded. Registration link: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi... A graphic that includes text describing that there is a virtual town hall to celebrate The Open Notebook, which supports journalists, turning 15. The event is on Tues. Aug. 26 at 2 pm ET on Zoom. The graphic includes a QR code to navigate to the link to register. ALT Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo if you've ever wanted to know EXACTLY what makes a squid a squid, I made this helpful diagram last #Squidtember An evolutionary tree that splits into two branches. The first, Octopodiformes, further splits into octopuses and vampire squid. The second, Decapodiformes, leads into a cloud full of question marks. Emerging from the cloud are pygmy squid, bobtail squid, rams horn squid + oegopsid squid, myopsid squid, and cuttlefish. ALT Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 10mo Someone on tumblr reblogged an answer to a question about squid taxonomy with the tag "Squid is a social construct" and 1) LOL 2) Wait I think that's correct Danna Staaf @dannastaaf.bsky.social · 1mo I dug up both the diagram and Sarah's post because I'm currently trying to respond to a copy editor's very reasonable query about what a squid is Home Explore Notifications Chat Feeds Lists Saved Profile Settings Following Science Marine Life! 🦑 SciArt 🐡 More feeds Trending Microsoft Pritzker James Comey Pikmin Blacksky Dolly Parton Feedback • Privacy • Terms • Help Illustration of an underwater scene from the surface to the deep sea floor. Depth is marked on the left, from 0 m at the surface to 3200 m in the middle to 7000 m at the bottom. Near the surface, a red squid swims under a gelatinous dotted mass that contains the text "[eggs]." A speech bubble from the squid reads, "Humboldt squid lay the most eggs of any cephalopod: up to a THOUSAND THOUSAND per mass! (Yes, that's a million)." At the middle depth, a group of purple octopuses sit curled up on rocks. A speech bubble from one says, "The largest aggregation of cephalopods on earth could be more than twenty THOUSAND pearl octopuses." On the seafloor, an orangey-pink octopus with large fins says, "The deepest cephalopod ever seen was a Dumbo octopus at seven THOUSAND meters."](https://assets.buttondown.email/images/8610705e-6f63-480b-be05-c27e782d1eed.png?w=960&fit=max)
Then, I saw some incredible footage of a sperm whale eating a giant squid! Thanks to Ludo for the video, and to Rebecca Helm for sharing and contextualizing it. Scientists have known for a long time that this occurs regularly, but it’s never before been filmed. I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird sperm whale mouths are, and yet how perfectly shaped for inserting giant squid into.
