I Don't Know About That - Squids

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses squids with science communicator and squid biologist, Sarah McAnulty. Follow Sarah on all social media @SarahMackAttack ! Make sure to check out her fact-filled coloring book about cephalopods, "The Ink-credible Cephalopod Coloring Book" on Amazon. Our merch store is now live! Go to idontknowaboutthat.com for shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Okay. Planes, trains, automobiles. Which one was a movie written about? Probably all of them. And all of them individually. What's happening? John Candy. Welcome to the podcast.

What? All right, welcome to the podcast. It sounded like it was a lot of things patched together there. Like, we couldn't do the words this week. Just throw some words. Candy corn. How are you all going? Good. Wow. We've got to advertise some gigs before we start the show.

We've got a fun show for you as always. I will be in Saskatoon. I'm in Australia right now. I'm in Saskatoon. Ah, come out. All the shows are sold out except for there was an extra show added in Melbourne. The extra show in Perth already sold out. I think the extra show in Melbourne's already sold out. And there's a few tickets in

New Zealand, but not many. So come, don't come. But the people who are coming, I'll see you there. Great advertisement. Yeah, yeah. Come, don't come. I'll give a shit.

Yeah, I'm already got people coming. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be at the football. I'm going to be eating meat pies. I'm going to have people coming up to the street telling me I've gotten fat. It's all happening down in Australia. Down under. Yeah. Man to be alive. What's the happening down in Australia. Down under. Yeah. Man to be alone.

What's the first thing you're going to eat when you get there? A little garlic chicken sandwich with spicy sauce. I'm a big fan of that. I might get myself, I'll buy my standard three kilos of prawns. Yeah, you did that. That was the first thing when I went there with you. You got the, we went to that mall near your house, and we got some prawns,

as you call them, shrimps, and just mustard sauce maybe. No, no, no, no, no, just seafood sauce or some mayonnaise. Seafood sauce, yeah. We just ate them in your kitchen. We were everywhere. Your parents' kitchen, yeah. Bloody good prawns, mate. I'll just get some cheap-ass Australian white bread,

which would be the best bread in America. I'm fucking on. I'm on it. And then what was that other place with the peas? What was that place that we ate at late night one time? Harry's Cafe de Wheels. Yeah. What is that?

With the pie and mushy peas. Is that good or was I just drunk? Oh, it's good when you're drunk. There's a bit of pies out there, but it's a little from Colomay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Patreon? Yeah. Follow us on Patreon. yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Um, uh, Patreon. Yeah. Follow us on Patreon, a patrion.com slash ID cat. Am I not saying it right? I say Patreon. What do you say? Patreon.

Hey, don't patronize me. And then, uh, we got merch at, I don't know about that.com and follow us on Instagram at ID cat podcast and follow us individually. If you want to see what we're doing in our lives,

follow Arnie on Tik TOK. Yeah. Arnie's on Tik you want to see what we're doing in our lives. Follow Arnie on TikTok. Yeah, Arnie's on TikTok apparently. Well, maybe he will be by then. Alright, let's start this show. Okay, please welcome our guest, Sarah McAnulty. G'day Sarah. Now it's time to play Yes No

Yes No Yes No Judging a book by its cover Alright, put the full picture up there for me, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. All right. All right, put the full picture up there for me, Jack. Sarah, you work with animals, correct? I do. They're animals that are nocturnal, correct?

Some of them. Yeah. We've done reptiles before. It looks like you have a reptile. We did Australian reptiles. Okay, we've done Australian reptiles. It looks like you have a reptile. We did Australian reptiles. Okay. We've done Australian reptiles. So is it regular reptiles?

Regular. It's not regular reptiles. No. It's not reptiles. It's not reptiles at all. Not reptiles at all. Yeah. Not reptiles. I think he's looking at the, the, the, in the background.

What's in there? That's a chameleon. That's a reptile. Not doing chameleons. Okay. Just happens to have a chameleon. There is a dinosaur. It's full size, but it's way in the distance. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Not doing chameleons. Okay. Just happens to have a chameleon. There is a dinosaur. It's full size, but it's way in the distance.

Yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah. We did dinosaurs two weeks ago. Why don't you ask her some questions? Okay. Are the animals pets? They're not pests. Definitely not.

No, not pests. Are they pets? Are they domesticated animals? Also not pets. Also not pets. Okay. Are they regarded as cute animals that people like? In Japan, they're absolutely considered cute.

Some other people think that they're cute too. I'm one of the people who thinks that they're cute. Sarah thinks they're cute. Are they bigger than a loaf of bread? Some are way bigger than a loaf of bread and Some are way bigger than a loaf of bread, and some are much smaller than a loaf of bread. Oh, I see. You've probably eaten. You've eaten this before.

Are we talking about fish? No. Are we talking about pandas? Nope. What, do you eat a panda? I have, yeah. I can think of like a pasta that would be

pigeon. Yeah, pigeon pasta. That's exactly what I was going to say. Pasta, appetizer. I think thinking about the chameleon and fish at the same time might be helpful. Oh, yeah. Is it a cum fish?

That's a cross between a chameleon and a fish. Is it? Yeah, a cum fish. Got it. Actually, that's actually, in a sense, close. I'm not getting any close. You would have gotten this as an appetizer. Salt and pepper or... Oh, squid. They're octopus. Yes.

I was thinking squidding pasta. I've convinced my wife that calamari isn't squid so I can still eat it because my wife thinks that squid are very intelligent. We're not to eat them anymore. What do you tell her calamari is? None of her business. That's what you tell her calamari is.

Do you eat squid? I do. I do. And you also like squids? I do. I think they're great. But aren't they very intelligent? They're very smart, right?

I've watched their My Pet Octopus. Like in the 90s, very popular to have a baby squid salad. Remember that where you have the leaves and you throw a whole lot of baby squid on top? That's like Roe versus Wade shit. You know what I mean? Like that's a lot of stillborn squids, right? It's certainly, it's veal adjacent. But pigs are also very smart and we eat them without really

thinking twice about it. Not anymore. I eat it on the sly every now and again. But I try not to. My pig intake's substantially down. You did like it. I'm a big fan. I think you should be able to eat stuff that's smart. What's wrong with that?

Well, because they might cure cancer or something yeah yeah okay there's always a chance well let me let me introduce sarah sarah mcannolty is a science communicator and squid biologist she's an expert on the hawaiian bobtail squid particularly how squid and bacteria work together in symbiosis on social media you can find her at sarah mack attack that's s-a-r-a-h m-a-c-k attack on all platforms you can find her at Sarah Mac attack. That's S A R A H M A C K attack on all platforms. You can find her there. Um, she also has a coloring, a fact-filled coloring book about cephalopods, the ink credible cephalopod coloring book. Um, and she runs an informal science education nonprofit called

Skype a scientist. So this is actually how I found her. I stumbled upon this website and it's so cool like you can scientist you can you can look up different topics of things that you would want to talk about and then a list of scientists come up and then you can request that they do like a talk for your school or anything like that and so i had emailed to see like how can i get access to all these experts she's like i'm a squid expert and i was like yes let's do this all right so how did so you started this the skype a scientist or i did yep i founded it back in 2017 oh sweet is that a good description what kelly said or you want to add anything else totally all right yeah we um we offer uh matches

with scientists whether you're a classroom library scout troop a homeschooling family at home anybody um if you want to talk to a scientist we we will match you with one for free. It can be everybody from psychologists, social scientists, astronomers, squid biologists, pretty much any kind of scientist you need to talk to. We'll get you matched up for free. So I am leaning on this website a lot now to book guests, which is awesome. So thank you for making my life a little easier. Of course. Happy to help. And Sarah will also be teaching a class all about squid just for fun. And if you want to take it for fun in the fall with Atlas Obscura,

we'll put links to all of that on the YouTube and on our podcast and stuff. Thanks for being here, Sarah. So I'm going to ask Jim some questions about squid and you can listen to Jim's answers. We'll write them down too. So we remember them. And at the end of answering these questions, you're going to grade them zero through 10, 10 on the best on his accuracy on his knowledge of squids. Kelly's going to grade them on confidence 0 through 10.

I'm going to grade them on etc. 0 through 10. All those scores add up to 0 through 10. Squid row. Ah, yeah. That's a good one. 11 through 20. Squid game. 21 through 30. Squiggity diggity doo. When did you say squiggity doo, though?

Squidity? Squidity? Squidity diggity doo. Okay When you say squiggity-doo though? Squidity? Squidity? Squidity-diggity-doo. Okay. What he said. All right. What are squids classified as? Oh, the sea dwellers.

Okay. They have eight legs. All right. They have eight legs. That's a They have eight legs, you see. That's a question. Describe their anatomy. How many arms and tentacles? I'm going to give you that.

Okay. So I think it's two arms and six legs. Tentacles? I don't know. That's the tentacles, yeah. I don't know. See, it always makes me confused because, like, Okta, meaning eight,

was the same as October, which would be the 10th month. So why is that the 10th month? And then Decagon, meaning 10, is December, which is 12. So that throws me all out. We're squids, though. So how many arms and tentacles do they have? They have two arms and six legs. Okay. I keep saying, okay. They have two arms and six tentacles do they have? Two arms and six legs. Okay, I keep saying, okay.

They have two arms and six tentacles. Oh, you mean the actual suckers on their arms? Don't worry about it. Next. Okay, don't worry about it. Moving on. Squids are classified as sea dwellers. Next question, what is a cephalopod?

It's an octopus. It's an octopus? Yeah, octopus are a cephalopod. What does it mean? Do you know what it means? it's an octopus yeah octopus arena what does it mean do you know what it means or uh it means it's it's it's got a um a head and legs and no body okay when did they first appear in evolution um we've been giant squids back with the with the uh dinosaurs i'm gonna say uh a couple of million years ago would have been our first squid. How many species of squid are there?

Oh, there'd be many, many, many. No, I would say a couple of hundred. Okay. What is the difference between a squid and an octopus? I believe, okay, this might be wrong. A squid produces ink and octopus doesn't. All right. Do they have skeleton squids?

They do not. Okay. How do they move through the water and at what speeds can they swim? They move their legs like this and they sort of shimmy and roll. And then they can go with their legs and push their head back like that. They push them all at once and then they do like, I'm just moving slowly and then a bit of back like that. They push them all at once and then they do like, I'm just moving slowly and then a bit of speed like that. How fast are they going?

So they go head first. Depending on the thing, I reckon you could get one that goes up to 15 miles an hour. What do they eat? Like what do they prey upon and how do they find their prey? Oh, that's a good one. Are they, do they prey upon and how do they find their prey oh that's a good one are they do they just eat plankton um are they i i don't know that i don't think they're meat eaters

but they do seem to capture things and sort of wrap their arms around it and sort of kill it a bit hugging it yeah i um i believe i i i i'm gonna say that they kill the things through suffocating them and they eat it or and then they eat it. Where do they eat it? At the bottom of the sea. No, how? What part of their body? Through their anus, which is also their mouth.

Where is that? The bottom hole. It's up and underneath in the legs. They push it in that way to the bottom. You don't see it. What does their mouth look like? They do have a smiley face and they sort of. Do you know what the mouth, what it would be, what it looks like or shape?

It's a mouth, man. What do all mouths look like? Small hole for shoving things in. Okay. Anything else about the way they eat that you want to add? They don't use cutlery. Okay. What eats them?

What are the predators of squid? Sharks and different animals. Any sort of meat-eating fish. And, like, I saw that with my friend, the octopus. They can eat an arm off, and the arm will grow back, although the thing will be in a lot of pain. But they can use that to escape. Okay.

Anything? How about their eyes? What can you tell me about their eyes? They can see 360 degrees. Oh, good one. All right. what are some unique adaptations of squid like what are they do they discharge ink uh some do some don't but yes they can okay and is there anything else like they can do maybe maybe your taxes or no like i mean can they change colors or camouflage? Yeah, they can definitely change colors like a chameleon. How do they do that?

Well, they replicate the surroundings around them. I'm telling you. Oh, sorry. And they can camouflage themselves. Like in My Friend the Octopus, he would pick up shells and stuff off the bottom of the ocean, stick them on him and stuff like that. So he's like, nothing to see here. I'm the floor.

Right? They can and stuff like that. So he's like, nothing to see here. I'm the floor. Right? They can do things like that. And they can change with the different, if they're in a sunny bit of the water or a darker bit of the water or when they're up against something like a chameleon. But they can camouflage themselves just with objects around themselves. Oh, but how do they change colors? I just told you, Forrest, man.

Don't camouflage anything. What's the largest squid? Like, what's it called? How big is it, and what's the smallest? That would be a king squid, and that's a giant squid, they call them, giant squids, and they're about the size of you, Forrest. Okay. That's pretty big.

What about the smallest? That would be called the little baby squids. They're about the size of a couple of golf balls. How do squids reproduce? Eggs or are they fucking? I think they're egg layers. They're egg layers. They have the fucking and then

they lay the eggs and then they sit on top of the eggs and then the eggs hatch. Do they have hearts? And the eggs, and then the eggs hatch. Okay. Do they have hearts? And if so, how many? I believe they have two hearts. They might have three hearts.

I like how you think you know this. No, no, I do. I've heard this before. I've heard this before. I believe three hearts. Okay, it's either two, three, or five. I know I'm giving myself a lot. Okay.

But I'm going to say they have two hearts. One through ten. No, two, three, or five i know i'm giving myself a lot okay but i'm gonna say they have two hearts one through ten no two three or five is the answer do you know anything about the giant squid or the humboldt squid or any other squids you don't even like fat i don't get involved in their personal life i don't i don't you know we'll talk about it if you don't know yeah i don't know what kind of squid do we eat? Like in the U.S., let's say. Whatever they give me, man. If it's like a specific species, I'm sure you're not going to probably. Calamari. I eat calamari.

It's a popular one. And in South Africa, the calamaris must be massive because they can't give you the rings. They only give you the strips. Okay. Sarah, how did Jim do on his knowledge of squids, 0 through 10? 10's the best. Pretty good. I'm going to give it, compared to any person that I encounter

on the street, I would say above average. I think people who grew up in Australia know squids better than the people in the United States. So I'm going to say a seven. All right. Pretty good. Was it the swimming that got it? Because I thought they got a lot. The swimming was not

completely accurate, but I thought it was pretty good. You liked the back that was good, I think. I liked the arms and legs part. The raids was definitely, I think, an effective vibe of what the squid do. Okay, seven. How do you do on confidence, Kelly? I'm going to give him a six and a half on confidence. Thirteen and a half.

All right, I'm just going to give you a five, so you're a squid game. You like me, Sean? I like that movie. Yeah. Maybe, Sean. Yeah, so I don't know why it's called Squid Game. The old guy was doing it the whole time. Should have watched it already.

I've seen it. No, I'm just saying to people who are listening. I haven't seen it. Spoiler. Oh, wow. Okay. It's been out for a while. Okay.

What are squids classified as? He said sea dwellers. They're not not sea dwellers. We usually use the word cephalopods. They're cephalopods. So you're giving them points based on him not being wrong necessarily, but not right. You know what? I think not being wrong is pretty good.

Much better than being wrong, isn't it? If you would have said they live in fields, you would have gotten no points. Well, no. So what is a cephalopod? Cephalopods include the octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus. They are a type of mollusk they all live in uh the ocean um and they generally speaking have a head and then arms up front and then the

rest of their body like their torso behind their eyes so we think of humans as being like head shoulders knees and toes they're like you know legs eyeballs but torso you know it's just the important parts yeah yeah different uh different approach to living for sure yeah the cuttlefish i only know the cuttlefish from like thai restaurants when you get it because they the first time i ever ordered it they're like it's like it's like squid and you get it you're like this is not like squid at all they look a little different yeah yeah i like it look like rings i like food did not look like the animals i'm eating i'm afraid and a nautilus can you eat a nautilus that's uh i wouldn't recommend it they're they're borderline or totally endangered at this point so um mostly because we collect their shells because their

shells are so gorgeous um so don't buy Nautilus shells. That's a thing to live by. Words to live by. Don't buy Nautilus shells. I can actually see the chameleon now. Oh, yeah. He's making those. He's interesting. There he comes. Oh, he's big. He's a big boy. What's his name? His name's Mark. Hi, Mark.

I love that. Everyone called him Boy George. We could. Oh, yeah. I get it. Culture club. So when did they first appear in evolution? A really, really long time ago. So cephalopods, so the animals that led the squid, they have been on Earth for longer than Earth has had trees. So they've been on Earth for an incredibly long time. They've been on Earth for 500 million years.

They've been on Earth for an incredibly long time. They've been on Earth for 500 million years. Sharks are about 450 million years old, and trees are about 375 million years old. So cephalopods are incredibly ancient earthlings. Do they look different, those species from back? I mean, are they pretty close to similarity? They look more like a nautilus back then. So there were a couple of different kinds. They mostly look like spiral shells with a bunch of like a face coming out the front.

And some of them looked more like a traffic cone with a face coming out the front. So their faces, so like their eyes and then their arms haven't changed that much. Still pretty much look like that. But their torso, so their mantle, like the torpedo part of their bodies, used to be inside of shells. Yeah, the Nautilus, whenever I see a Nautilus swimming, it looks weird. I had never even heard of that, and I don't think I've ever

seen this. I'm looking it up. I'm looking it up right now. No, it's like the shell, see right there? We can put a picture, but that's a shell, and then the animal hangs out of the shell, but it doesn't look like it should be moving like that swimming through the water there's a giant shell and stuff there used to be like a submarine yeah yeah they're not super fast they're kind of clumsy um but yeah they're beautiful and how many species of squid are there

jim said a couple hundred about 300 300 so nailed it that's a couple So nailed it. That's a couple hundred. Nailed it. Very, very, very generous. She said I nailed it. So negative. Describe their anatomy. How many arms and tentacles? Jim said they had they have two arms and six legs. They've got two tentacles and then eight arms. The difference between an arm and a tentacle is that arms are like pretty muscular, not that stretchy and then covered in suction cups all the way down to the tip. And tentacles are really, really, really stretchy. They're mostly hidden in between the arms while the squid is going about its day.

But then when it wants to attack prey, it'll shoot them out, grab it, and then bring it to their mouth. So the suction cups are only on the clubs, which is like their hands. Okay. So that's something I please. All right. And then, yeah. So did we skip the squids and octopuses?

No, you answered it. Like the difference between a squid and octopus? He said a squid produces ink and octopus doesn't. Yeah. How was that? Well, squid and octopus, the most part still producing. There are a couple really deep sea squid and octopuses that don't make ink anymore because nobody can see the ink.

So it's not as helpful as it is in shallow water. But both octopus and squid make ink most of the time. The difference between a squid and an octopus is that the squid has two tentacles and eight arms, and the octopus has eight arms, no tentacles. And there's like some differences in their internal organs and stuff, but we don't need to get into that. They're generally like, octopuses tend to hang out on the seafloor, so they're hanging out in dens. They're just kind of walking around on the ground. Meanwhile, squid, for the most part,

are up and swimming in the water most of the time. So we're mostly eating squid. We're not eating octopus? Depending on where you live. If you live in Greece or Spain, you're probably eating a fair amount of octopus. Japan too. In the United States,

we eat a lot more squid than we do octopus. And when you're eating calamari, it's always squid right and what's the purpose of ink is that like uh to make pasta with it oh okay the main reason yeah that's good making i'll tell you what you have a poo after that but under the sea after having the squid ink i didn't know I had a shit that was so black It was Guinness black And I was like I was going through all my food Something's happened to me

All I did was eat that squid ink pasta the other day And I had a sandwich And I was like It's the sandwich It's the sandwich What is Wait wait wait I want the real answer of the ink No it was the sandwich what is what is trying to wait wait but i want the real answer of the

the it was the squid ink oh okay then yeah i just needed to hear it again yeah squid ink is actually really cool there's a lot of different things that squid do with ink you mostly think of it as gnocchi they can make gnocchi with it yeah they uh they shoot like these big clouds just make like a smoke bomb but they can also mix it in with mucus and make a little like blob, like a little snot blob that's the same size and shape as them. So if there's a shark or a whale or a fish that's going to attack them, they really quickly make like seven ink blobs that are about the size and shape of them. And then the predator, instead of having one target to attack has like eight, and then it helps the squid get away um deep deep in the ocean a lot of squid live deep in the ocean and um they kind of have a hard time

finding each other so one of the ways that deep sea squid uh help each other find like smell each other out is by releasing these very faint trails of ink it literally looks like the little squid is smoking a cigarette it looks Like crop dusting ink. Yeah, exactly. And so other squid can kind of sniff and follow the trail and find them. That's the same reason I masturbate in every room I go into.

Oh, wow. So everybody can find you. Everyone can find me eventually. Yikes. It's not real, Sarah. It's a comedy podcast. That's true. That is true.

Yeah, but I don't know how that helps. Helps find you, I'm saying. It doesn't help. It's sweaty. It'll help find me in a murder scene, you know. You're leaving DNA everywhere you go. That's right. Leaving an alibi, I guess.

What is the ink made out of? Melanin. And that's about it. And then some like chemicals in there too, like that they can smell. And is it like, is it ever a fear-based reaction? Like in Finding Nemo,

it's like you just made me ink. A hundred percent. Awesome. Yes. Love that. Finding Nemo, a hundred percent accurate. Yes.

Sorry for the big yawn just then. I have a baby at home. I was getting to the end of my day. Babies are hard. You got one of them? They're the worst. No, I don't. Don't get one. You know what? Stick with squids. Stick to my squids. Yeah, they're the worst.

She's got a chameleon. No one's ever been like, why are you tired? I'm a chameleon. Kept me up all night. Bloody hell, you wouldn't believe. I woke up. It was was complaining and then i went to look for it couldn't find the fucking thing that could happen what happens when a chameleon sits on top of a mirror they just uh they probably they don't do much of anything i think they know

i think they're they know oh you thought it was gonna turn into a mirror yeah like it's looking at itself so who has it i don't know if a comedian wants to this or something but i've heard this said in people conversation this isn't my original thought like so if a chameleon stands on a mirror does it mimic its own look and then if what happens there well we're talking about i think it might even be more likely for it to like react as if it's seeing another chameleon so what do chameleons do when they look at other chameleons? I don't actually know the answer to that question. Well, you have a chameleon.

I assume you have a mirror. I should try it. I could try that experiment. There's nothing stopping me from doing that experiment. I will. We'll have you on for another podcast. Yeah. Back to squids.

Do they have a skeleton? Jim said no, but many, he just said no. No, that's correct. They don't have a skeleton jim said no but many uh he just said no no that's correct they don't have a skeleton some of them have an internal shell um that's just like an evolutionary leftover like we still have tail bones um but sometimes it's useful for for other various things like cuttlefish their internal skeleton the cuttlebone helps them stay neutrally buoyant so they're not either floating to the surface by accident or sinking by accident. So that's helpful. And don't they sell those for birds to chew on? Totally.

Yep. It gives a calcium, your pet bird cuddles. I just realized when you said cuddle fish, it was like a cuddle bone learning things that already kind of sorted. How do they move through the water? And at what speed can they swim? Jim said,

they shimmy and roll. They whoosh to get speed. Then they shimmy and roll who They whoosh to get speed. Then they shimmy and roll, whoosh again up to 50 miles an hour. That whooshing is called jet propulsion. So their whole torso is open to the seawater. So they can basically take a big breath in and then close off the area that they breathed in with and then shoot all that water out a very small tube called their siphon. And so that's the whoosh maneuver. And then they absolutely do little shimmies,

like little movements with their fins for very fine motions. Maybe they just want to move a little bit forward or a little bit backward. Maybe they're laying their eggs or whatever. So they do both the shimmy and the whoosh, the jet propulsion. I wonder how often they like overshoot

where they're going. About all the time. About the same amount as us yeah yeah the amount of people i've watched an uber eats where i'm like you idiot why are you still driving and how fast can they go and i think the probably one of the faster squid is the um japanese flying squid so they shoot themselves out of the water and then glide along the air and then land back in the water

and I think they clock in at like 25 miles an hour but I think on average 15 miles an hour is like that's a pretty good guess I think that would be a pretty regular squid speed they go out of the water it's like a Red Bull event sounds awesome I always think the animals that live in the water

that are able to jump out of the water not dolphins and whales because they're they're wait but the ones that aren't quite as smart and i know that's what maybe haven't just what they must be like they get back in the water i've seen heaven guys i don't know it's the same as when you go see someone ride a motorcycle and jump up and do a flip and land and we all go, how does he do that? It's amazing. It's the same thing. It's probably like going to space for us. Yeah.

It's not like going to space is a bit much. He's just jumped a bit out of the water. He comes straight back down. Yeah, but he doesn't know what the outside of water world's like. Also, it's called jet propulsion. We've got JPL labs that deal with rockets going to space. They go up to 25 miles an hour. That's how fast rockets go.

Yeah. I think at least, at least that's how fast. Rockets are allowed to go in school zones. It all checks out. It all checks out. So what do they eat and how do they find their prey? Jim said they just wrap their arms around them and suffocate them and they eat through their anus,

which is also their mouth. They do have a squid. Let's talk about squid anuses. Why not? Let's go there. So the squid anus is actually right inside the siphon. So it's totally different from their mouth. Their mouth is a beak. Um, their, uh, their beak is right in between all of their arms. And so when they want to eat something, they could be eating, um, another squid, a fish, a crab, a shrimp. Those are the things that most squid eat. They're shooting their tentacles out, grabbing it. The suction cups on the ends of their tentacles have circles of teeth. So they can like dig those teeth like into the

prey. And then they bring it to their mouth. They take a bite. The beaks have venom in them. So it often paralyzes the prey. And then they can just sort of like take their time snacking on whatever it is that they just killed through their beak. And the other weird thing is that the tube that they swallow down their esophagus goes through their brain because their brain, it just sort of like as a side effect of how they evolved, evolved around the tube that they swallow through. So when they swallow, it goes like through a donut hole in their brain. It's super weird. So when they eat other squid, is it like squids have their own gangs that they, so it's like a rival gang squid that

they would be eating? Like how do they know when to protect themselves from other squids? That's a good question. I don't know if we know, I think a lot of times they'll just eat squid that are much smaller than them because some squid live in huge groups. The Humboldt squid is one of these squid. And so they're just sort of really aggressive. And if they get too hungry, they're going to choose other animals first because you'd, you know, you'd rather eat too hungry, they're going to choose other animals first because you'd rather eat something that's not related to you. But if push comes to shove, they're very hungry, they might eat a smaller squid in their school. Now, if they're just a mouthhead and an asshole, where do they digest the food and how quickly does it turn to shit? Pretty quick. It turns pretty quick. So they don't have as complex of a microbiome

as we do. So they're digesting pretty quickly. They swallow, it goes back from their head. Through the hole in the brain. Through the hole in the brain, back to like that torpedo shape part of their body. With the octopus, it basically just goes into what looks like their head, which is kind of weird to think about. They digest pretty quick, and then it comes right out their siphon, right, like under their chin, which is gross. So they're shit shit. It doesn't just come out like an octopus falls out of them

or a fish just falls out of them. It looks like shit. falls out of them or a fish just falls out of them. It looks like shit. It looks like less solid than mammal shit. It's like little ribbons.

It's like ribbons of poop. It looks like after you eat cheese. I don't know what's going on with you. It was blood, isn't it? You two might need to see a physician. Yeah. And so the venom, if one bit like us, a human, would the venom kill you?

Most of it would be fine. Absolutely not. There's only one cephalopod, the blue-ringed octopus, that is like dangerous from the venom perspective. Oh, I know those ones. I know those ones. Yeah, I'm sure. So don't mess with those.

Are blue bottles part of the same family whenever they wash up on the shore, those blue bottles? Yeah. So they're totally a different thing. So squid are mollusks. That's like related to lambs, snails, slugs, like all that kind of stuff. And then blue bottles are, I believe,

cnidarians. And so that's like a jellyfish. Oh, like a man o' war? It's a little tiny jellyfish and it's blue. It's got tentacles. And they can stick on you and it can give you a nasty bite. We call them man o' war. I did growing up. Man o' wars is what we called them.

Yeah, yeah. But on a bad day in Australia, you'll see hundreds of them washed up and it's like, can't come on the beach, boys. There's blue bottles. Yeah, in Florida. I got stung really bad when I was a kid by one of those. I've also been stung by a man o' war. That was rather unpleasant. And somebody peed on me. Turns out that's not what you're supposed to do.

Yeah. That was just a kick. Happens to the best of us. Has a squid ever eaten a person? So we don't, not like in a super recorded way. I can't promise you that a human has never, ever been eaten by a squid. There are some squid that are pretty aggressive. The Humboldt squid is definitely the one that kind of gets the worst rep for

being aggressive. People have sort of told fishermen's tales about getting pulled into the water when fishing for them and then never surfacing again. But there's nothing, you know, definitive that that's happened, but I wouldn't put it past that. How big is a Humboldt squid, the aggressive ones?

Sometimes they're two feet long. Sometimes they're closer to six feet long. But long ones are really big and quite strong. Squids in general, I'm sure there's different breeds, but in general, are they endangered? In general, no.

Right now, cephalopods are doing pretty well, but with climate change, uh, not to get, uh, down on anybody, but there's, you know, when they have like an upper limit on how hot they can handle and, um, the areas that they can successfully live happy lives in is getting smaller. So for some species, um, there are a couple of species that are doing awesome. Um, Often because we fished out many of their predators. So if tuna is the main thing that eats that species of squid, we've eaten a lot of tuna. Good of me to contribute.

The squid, thank you for your efforts. Yes. And yeah. So for the most part, currently, they're doing better than fish are. But we'll see. We'll see how that. How do we fish for octopus? Are sheamids drift nets or what is it?

That's a good question. So I think they put down like pots and then the octopus will crawl into the pot and then they pull the pot up and there's an octopus in it. Kind of like a varied version of a lobster trap. But I don't think lines are really the way you catch an octopus. You can catch squid with a line and hook, but most squid are caught with, I think they're called purse nets. It's like a net that you drag behind. purse nets uh it's a tight it's like a net that you drag behind they often the boats will have sonar so they can find the squid and then they drive over there and scoop them up with a net yeah there was when i was in mexico i i saw a boat they said they were catching their octopus

squid and it was like they had a long outrigger on the front i don't know what i never watched them do it but they said they were killing ah all right good story um so what eats squids what are their what are their predators uh jim said sharks meeting animals meat eating animals for sure yep sharks uh whales eat a ton of squid sperm whales can eat up to 700 squid a day um so lots of squid are being eaten by whales um by fish by other squid um sharks Dolphins, that kind of thing are all eating squid. The nice thing about squid is they don't have bones. So they're really easy to eat, really easy to digest. So if, if an animal has the opportunity to eat a squid,

it's probably going to take that opportunity. That's like a chicken finger. Chicken finger of the sea. The okay. And then 600 a day, you said, sperm whales eat? 700. 700. Maybe on average, but it's definitely.

It's crazy that they're not endangered when that, like, one whale. Yeah, I feel so bad about eating one. Yeah. That's all Taze's. When you eat three, you're like, that's not so bad. Yeah, exactly. So squid will, each time they lay eggs, they'll lay many, many, many eggs because one of like their ecosystem services is feeding a lot of other animals. So they have an absurd number of babies.

But so are they smart, though? I don't know if we ask that, but. So animal intelligence is like tough. It's just really tough to talk about because it's a cuttlefish looked at you or me, they might be like that idiot can't even change color and blend in with their background. Like, I'm not at all impressed by us. So there's different ways that animals are intelligent. They can be social with each other. That's a certain type of intelligence. Ants are really good at being social, but we don't really think of them individually as being smart. Um, ants are really good at being social, but we don't really think of them individually as being smart. Um, the octopuses can solve puzzles. They can learn not only from each other, but they can

watch another one of them, uh, do a task and then learn to do that task just by watching another one do it, which is pretty cool. Um, oct or a squid work together. They can communicate with each other by changing color. So in a Caribbean reef squid, which are really, really pretty, you can see them when you're snorkeling. They're very curious. They're very cute. They have a very specific, complicated, like flashing light pattern system in order to mate with each other. And so that's smart. I mean, having that complex of a mating ritual is a sort of intelligence. So I think having that complex of a mating ritual is a sort of intelligence. So I think they're smarter than a slug or a garden snail for sure. Are they as

smart as an orca? Probably not. But dog. Oh, that's tough. Depends on the dog, I think. Okay. I know a lot of dumb dogs. Yeah. But I mean, cuttlefish for sure can solve mazes and can learn symbols and what those symbols mean. So cuttlefish are smart. Because octopus, I know, the nice thing on video where one came

out of a tank and went into another tank and was like, it's figuring out some shit. They're very ape artists. Did a New York Times crossword puzzle or something. Once you're over choking Finding Dory, it's nuts what they can do. Yeah, there we go. Optimuses are also very impressive. You watched Finding Dory? What, you didn't?

No, I did not. Why wouldn't you? Add it to your list. Because it's years, years later since Finding Nemo. Like you would have been adults, both of you. So it's Pixar. I watch animated movies all the time. I have a B-movie poster on the wall. Of course I'm going to see Finding Dory.

An octopus is my next tattoo on my ocean arm. Awesome. What are some unique adaptations of some squid? Jim said they can do your taxes. They can also change colors and replicate their surroundings and cover themselves with shells.

Yes. So some squid have the ability to secrete glue from their skin. So they can literally take shells and sand and do arts and crafts. They can make an entire decoupage. Give them a box of macaroni, they'll fucking give you a bit of that. Look out.

They'll definitely rival your five-year-old. That's right. But yeah, they can make underwater glue. That's pretty impressive. But they have all, especially the deep sea squid have so many weird approaches to life. There's this one squid called the strawberry squid that has one like regular sized eye and one gigantic, like stick out of its head, globe, very weird looking eye. And the reason it has these two very different eyes, one is for looking at bioluminescence,

so light produced by animals in the direct surrounding area. The other one is looking up, looking at the very faint differences in light from like the silhouettes of animals swimming above and the light coming down from the sun. They live so deep in the ocean that there's very little light around. So they have to amplify as much light as they can, which is why you have this big goofy eye and one little eye. So that's a cool adaptation. The color changing is really amazing. They have multiple layers of color changing ability. They have chromatophores, which are basically like little tiny spheres of pigment that are surrounded by muscles. They contract the muscles and the itty bitty sphere turns into a big wide pancake. And that's how they change color really quickly.

Each one of those little structures is directly linked to their brain. So they can change color as quickly as they can think about changing color. Chameleons over here can only change as quickly as their hormones shift, which takes way, way, way longer, which is pretty cool. Under that, they have what's called erythrophores, which are these like glittery, sparkly structures that they also use to change color. That's responsible for the more like green, blue, sparkly parts of squid. And some of them have what's called a leucophore, which is just like a bike reflector. It's like whatever light you shine at it,

it'll shine directly back in that same color, which is useful in some situations. They also have these things called papillae. Papillae are like extreme goosebumps. So they stick up and can help the animal look uh spiky or uh like a yeah and so maybe if they want to look like a piece of algae they make themselves the color of the algae and the texture of the algae which is uh very very cool also can be very quick yeah so they how do they that's weird how they would have to so they'd be

like oh this is this color and this texture and then they know exactly how to contract they have to learn that i'm assuming right yeah it's i mean it's really amazing so that we think one of the reasons they have such big brains uh for their body size is that they have to coordinate all of that all the time um one of the things that um some cephalopods do when they're hunting is this maneuver called passing cloud. It's where they move this black band of color across their bodies. It looks like a hypnotist's wheel. It is wild to watch. And they're able to do this really, really quick. And how they coordinate that between their brain cells and their skin cells is really impressive. Like just from a computational standpoint, it's really amazing um the broad cut club cuttlefish is uh really famous for being very good at that

i feel like i need to get my shit together i'm i'm like i can't think to do anything impressing me too much i have to remember to breathe uh wait no i actually do i i've been thinking about this for the last couple of days. If I'm not actively thinking about breathing, especially when I'm trying to go to sleep, I will not breathe. And then all of a sudden I'm gasping for air. And I'm like, how am I alive still? What? No. Babies are born right away to breathe. You're thinking about breathing too much and then you're panicking about it.

No, I'm not saying all the time I have to think about breathing. How did Kelly die? She forgot how to breathe. She forgot breathing. I really do feel like I just stopped breathing for a while. I know what you're talking about, but that's like a stress-induced type of thing. Yeah, I'm sure it probably is. Because we're involuntary breathers.

Dolphins are voluntary. They do have to think about breathing. I understand that it i'm it's involuntary breathing but there are lots of times where i'm like oh my god i haven't taken a breath you don't have to remember to breathe it'll be all right just stop thinking about it you'll be breathing i'm so stressed i uh i got institutionalized like a baker acted for like 48 hours one time in florida when i was you got what it's called baker eggs it's a florida thing people think you're a threat to yourself.

Back in my extreme gambling days. Anyways, I was in this place where there was a lot of people that had different things they were dealing with. And there was a woman that got admitted there and she thought she was the Virgin Mary and she kept trying to kill herself by holding her breath. And they said,

go ahead. And they just left her in the corner. She kept going. I'm going to do it. I was like, wow, I ended up here. This is good for us. Great job. I saw you and her as an equal. That was really a rock bottom moment for us.

Like, wow, this is where I'm at. Okay. They're still trying to hold her breath over there. Happy mental health awareness month. Everyone. I just got a text from CVS. Get checked for lumps. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. Talk to a therapist today. Oh my gosh. Better help. Better help. They sponsor this podcast. Hey, there we go.

Largest and smallest squid. Jim said the king squid or giant squid size of me and and the baby squid the size of a couple of golf balls. Even more extreme than that. The smallest squid is called the pygmy squid. They live in Australia and also in the Pacific. They're about the size of my pinky fingernail, but really skinny. But I want to know how big you are. You might be massive.

I could be. I could be the size of a house. You have no idea. You could be nine foot tall. I've only seen you on film. The size of your pinky fingerna idea. You could be nine foot tall. Why are they seeing you on film? Size of your pinky fingernail. Very, very small. The biggest squid is the colossal squid. Colossal squid are about the length

of a yellow school bus. What? So small in forest, is it? Yeah, and they're like let's see, this wide? They're pretty big. They're like like let's see this wide they're they're pretty big they're really like round um yeah so they're not as like thick as a school bus but they are as long as a school bus what do they eat um children sea bass they eat antarctic really well Wow, they're eating well. They really are. In a light coconut sauce. Loaded baked potatoes.

Some pungent vegetable of the day. They need a lot of food to get that big. Yeah, yeah. So they eat, we're not like really 100% sure. They live pretty deep in the ocean. We haven't seen them that many times. That's because we body shamed them. Do we ever?

Because I've seen on that chef, Iron Chef, when they get the giant squid and he's like, ah, dunk, dunk, and he's got, like, big tentacles and stuff and he has to cook with it. Have we ever eaten the school bus squid? Is there no now? No. No, and the reason that we don't is because their bodies are full of ammonia, so they would taste horrible.

They'd taste so gross. And the reason they're full of ammonia is because they um they're they're living pretty deep they don't want to expend a lot of energy on staying like where they are in the water so they incorporate ammonia into their tissues ammonia is less dense than water so it would float so they incorporate just enough ammonia into their muscles and tissues so that they stay exactly where they are. So who eats them? I don't know. I mean, giant squid, definitely sperm whales eat them. Other whales eat them as well.

I don't actually know if sperm whales live in the Southern Ocean. I should know that, but I just don't know. But if they did, I'm sure they would. Somebody probably eats them. I would imagine it would be a whale of some kind, but I don't know for sure. It's interesting because a giant squid I know is like that no one's ever, or there was, I think they have one on film now, right? Or something, but for a while it was like no one's ever seen one alive.

They just found dead ones. Yeah. And so the colossal is even bigger than that. Why does it get bigger? It gets no press. No one cares. I know. I think there's just not enough.

So they live in the Southern Ocean. There aren't people living in most parts of Antarctica. So we don't bump into them as much. So the times that we see them tend to be when humans are trying to go fishing for Chilean sea bass. And then the colossal squids like, oh, hey, you've prepared for me dinner. Thank you so much. And then they get stuck on the line and then get pulled up. And the fisherman's like jesus christ what do i do with this um and so yeah by the way the naming got really lazy there it's like giant squid colossal squid pretty big squid double big gulp squid we found the giant squid there's like well there's no way there's a bigger squid than this and then they were like oh shit we found one um how do they reproduce uh jim said some fucking and then they lay eggs that's accurate i was like when he was going between like did they

fuck or do they lay eggs i'm like they do both um so what's cool about there's a lot of cool things about cephalopod mating but one of of the things is that the male pretty much hands over in one way, shape, or form, spermatophores, which are like a packet of sperm. It's not just like, here's some sperm. It's a package of them that the female can store. It's like a ketchup packet, basically. So they don't have an octopus dong? There is an octopus dong. It's called a hectocotylus.

It's like one of their arms it was named after a guy called hector wait hecticotolus hecticotolus yes it's the cephalopod six oh gosh six i don't know the uh entomology penis like hector hector i don't really know okay i don't know but um but yeah so that's like the sperm delivery thing. And yeah, one squid that lives off the coast of California, it's called Octopetuthis. Instead of just like being a gentleman and handing the sperm over, which many squid do, whenever they encounter another squid, they punch the sperm through the female or male's torso. Like any squid they punch the sperm through the female or male's torso like any squid they encounter they don't check they don't say hello they just punch sperm through stick it to their

like inside of their torso and then swim away um so i'm very grateful to not be an octopus swim by raping yeah yeah i like how you said they're not a gentleman. They don't just hand the sperm over. But like some squid really do just hand it over. I once handed my sperm over in a cup and I wasn't considered a gentleman. But with the ketchup packets. I think the exact words were, you don't even know my name. You said the sperm comes in like ketchup packets of reproduction. And so you said that the female squid can just hang on to that until she's

ready to use them. So they technically have more rights than women in America when it comes to deciding when to have a baby. Yeah, but they have less rights when it comes to being eaten. We mostly don't get eaten that well. You ever heard of Hannibal? No. Oh God. At least that's not legal. Roe versus Applebee's. We? No. Oh, God.

At least that's not legal. Roe versus Applebee's. We'll see. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So, but yeah. So they have the option. So they'll often mate with like many males and then have this little collection of sporadophores.

And when they're ready to lay eggs, they can be like, I liked him. I did not like him. And then choose to lay their eggs. That's what I say. I always say don't squid shame. Don't squid shame. Never squid shame. Do squids have hearts? I saw how many Jim said they do and he said two through five.

Two, three or five. Four is not included. One of those answers is right. Yeah, they have three hearts. They have one heart for each of their gills and then one heart kind of in the middle to pump the blood kind of all over the place. Really? So three. Man, it looks like they don't have enough room for all this stuff. And there's kind of in the middle, the pump, the blood are kind of all over the place. Really? So three, man,

it looks like they don't have enough room for all this stuff. And there's a hole in the brain. How do they do all this? Yeah. All in the brain. They got the butt and the siphon. Got a beak. This question was just,

what do you know about squids? What do you know about the giant squid and the Humboldt squid and other squids? Is there any specific squid that you work with What do you know about the giant squid and the humbled squid and other squids? Is there a specific squid that you work with or you know something about? Like some interesting squid facts. I do like that Jim's answer was, I don't get involved in their personal lives.

That's what it was. Yeah. So I think one squid that's not getting enough attention is called Magna Pinna. They live, it's also called the Bigfin squid. They live about three also called the big fin squid they live about three miles below sea level um and they're just like incredibly creepy looking their bodies are about the same length as a person uh ballpark um but then they have these like dangly arms that

kind of dangle at like elbow they kind of look like elbows and then they dangle at like elbow, they kind of look like elbows. And then they dangle about eight meters on top of their body in addition to their body length. So that's about like, you know, the third, a third of a swimming pool ish. Um, and, uh, those danglers are basically waiting to bump into food so that they can then grab it and, um, slowly deliver it to their mouths. Um, they live in, in water that there's not much going on down there so they really want to maximize their ability to bump into stuff um look them up uh it kind of reminds me of like the slenderman of squids like very slenderman vibes yeah uh kind of uh yeah a nightmare nightmare fuel i don't like for sure yeah uh yeah and what kind of squid do we eat like here in the u.s jim said calamari that's true uh dory toothis is their genus name aka the market squid we've got a market squid out on the east coast we've got another species on the west coast they look pretty similar to each other

that's the one that we're eating most of the time yep why do you have it with a marinara sauce when the cocktail like that that's that's not the right sauce it's an american thing the cocktail sauce and it's red it should be with a nice creamy sort of tartar sauce yeah or an aioli why why sometimes we're given both on the east coast we definitely get tartar sauce some of the time that's much better the cocktail sauce what the fuck are you doing yeah yeah i don't know i don't know yeah so yeah i just looked at it So, yeah, I just looked at it. Look, the check's out there. I'm going to try some ammonia squid, though, I think so. Sure.

Okay. I think we got through all that. Did we do all the... Yeah. We got them. Okay. So this is a part of our show called Dinner Party Facts. We asked our expert to give us a fact, something obscure, interesting that our listeners can

use to impress people at dinner party about squid. Great. Okay. So I have a short fact for you you and then I have a long fact. The short fact is squid blood is blue. The reason there's their blood is blue. Our blood is red because the hemoglobin, the thing that attaches stocks,

the gin in our blood has iron in it. So it's red. Squid blood has hemo cyanin. Hemo cyanin has copper in it and the copper makes it blue. So there's your quick, when you are in dire straits, you need a squid fact. Squid blood is blue. Now you have it. I'm always in need of squid facts. Yeah, you never know. And then the other squid fact is about reproduction. So female squid and cuttlefish, not all squid, it's a long evolutionary story, but let's just say some squid and cuttlefish not all squid so it's it's a long

evolutionary story but let's just say some squid and cuttlefish have this um organ inside of them called the ang the ang is like a ball of tubes and in each tube there's a different species of brightly colored bacteria and the reason that they're holding on to all of this bacteria is because when they go to lay their eggs they take take their little embryo in their little sack and then they cover it with like onion layers of jelly. And in that jelly, they put that bacteria all mixed in with the jelly and the bacteria will create antibiotics and antifungals to prevent anything from growing on the squid eggs. and antifungals to prevent anything from growing on the squid eggs. And there are a bunch of scientists right now that are trying to figure out like, what are those compounds that they're using? And can we make those into drugs for us? Because we know that antibiotic resistance is a growing problem. But identifying antifungals is also really challenging because a lot of the

things that kill fungus also kill human cells. And so finding something that just kills a fungus, but not an animal is like a beautiful sweet spot. And so we're hoping to find some of those in these little squid. Well, they've been around for forever. They should have something good. Got some Neos boring. Good news. So you can just, the gist is you can make pasta out of that, right? And you can make pasta from it.

Different colors. Anti-fungal pasta. Anti-fungal, fungi, fungi pasta. Well, thank you, Sarah. We know a lot more now about octopuses. You got squids here? The whole thing was squids. But follow Sarah on.

I mean, there's cephalopods too to be fair you probably also learned something about follow Sarah on all social media platforms at Sarah McAttack and also check out SkypeAScientist.com as Kelly was talking about it

and also check out her coloring book the Ink Credible Cephalopod Coloring Book you can find it on Amazon. We'll have links to all that stuff, including the Atlas Obscura talk. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for talking squid with me.

That was a lot of fun. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and goes, you know, squid's blood's red, go, well, I don't know about that, and walk away. Good night, Australia.