As promised in the Christmas special, we call the ‘squid-phone’ – a special line used by scientists globally when they seem something strange and squiddy. On the other end of that line is Mike Vecchione, the expert on cephalopods. We talk giant and colossal squid (to audible groans from Mike); the bigfin squid (Magnapinna), most famous for being the squid with the long trailing arms that’s often used as an example of terrifying deep-sea creatures, but also a species, genus and Family that Mike described and would love more sightings of.
In recent news, we worry about deep-ocean circulation and its impact on climate. Reflect on a year of amazing sightings from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) including the giant phantom jelly (Stygiomedusa gigantea) and barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma).
We also address a snailfish imposter. The world’s deepest fish, the Mariana snailfish is more often than not represented by an image of a totally different species that happens to have a more attractive headshot. Prema Arasu presents her poem; An Ode to the Blobfish, in honour of another species dominated by one misleading photo.
Our regular contributors drop by too: Larkin – our resident deckhand tells the tale of an impromptu squid dissection and Don Walsh reflects on piloting the super-deep diving bathyscaphe Trieste in a time when giant squid attack was still a worry.
 
An Ode to the Blobfish by Prema Arasu
O Psychrolutes marcidus! O gelatinous shape!
Thou art the ravish’d bride of deep-sea trawlers—
Unassuming foster child of the timeless abyss
Untimely ripp’d from thy diatomaceous womb
 
Fearful fishermen rejoice at thy sacrifice
An Antipodean altar attended by inchoate priest—
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring thou shall rise and on the surface die.
 
Were I anointed and dragged to your Hadal habitus
Flayed and deconsecrated at thy mucilaginous prow—
Were I to partake in salt’d communion
With thou, we would be one and the same.
 
Hideousness is a lie, lies hideousness, that is all
We know on land, and all we need to know.
 
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
 
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
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Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
 
Correction
The Permian-Triassic extinction was not 98% of marine life, 96% of often cited but 81% seems the most accurate current estimate.
Links
Check out this fantastic book that Mike co-authored if you would like to learn more about cephalopods
Larkin’s YouTube channel My Salty Sea Life
More info about Prema Arasu
 
Deep-ocean circulation paper
 
The piezothermal effect
 
The polar see-saw
 
MBARI have had a great year for filming deep-sea critters and have a great best-of reel on YouTube.
 
Pink hand fish
 
Football fish
 
Falkor mural
 
Soft robotic snailfish
 
Blue Planet II poster
 
Nautilus Magazine
Alan's interview
 
Global assessment of hadal fishes – our big paper
 
Abyssobrotula galatheae – previous deepest fish from a single report
 
Bony-eared assfish
 
Top 5% of podcasts
 
Lonesome marine biologist Nando
 
Recent bigfin squid video
 
Zappa jellyfish
 
Observational articles: a tool to reconstruct ecological history based on chronicling unusual events by Ferdinando "Nando" Boero
 
Deepest squid paper
 
Deepest octopi paper
 
The Pteropods – swimming snails
 
Oegopsida or Oceanic squids, the true squid
 
Myopsids or coastal squids, could be considered true squid
 
Sepiolida the Bobtail squids
 
Vampyroteuthis infernalis the vampire squid, more closely related to octopods
 
Magnapinna sp. The bigfin squid, a charismatic and recently discovered family (the one's that creep everyone out!)
 
My Octopus Teacher on Netflix
 
Ramshorn squid (Spirula)
 
The Serpent Project
 
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
The Atacama snailfish which is often published as the Mariana snailfis