Brachioteuthis squids have these extremely long necks as paralarva, which give them a very goofy appearance.

And this was the #SQXmas2024 present we got most excited about at NIWA—a young Cycloteuthis, with ‘sun and moon’ photophores on the viscera in a configuration I’d never seen before. That’s a wrap for 2024—sending best fishes and squid tidings for the New Year!

You didn't think we'd get through the last week of #25DaysOfFishmas without one more anglerfish could you? But with 170+ species, how do you pick? Well, you just go with the weirdest one - today we're discussing Thaumatichthys, the wolftrap angler.

All kinds of life happening here! Octo with leeches, polychaete, sea star, demosponges, kelp?, & i think I see a wee psolus along w/ a lot of other critters. They're currently trying to avoid an iceberg, which is fascinating the hell out of me. #SchmidtOcean dive 767 #IntoSouthernOcean #MarineLife

Lovely swimming crinoid. #SchmidtOcean dive 767 #IntoSouthernOcean #MarineLife

Ah, histioteuthidae , easily one of my favorite families of squids. They have many names, one being strawberry squids. Strawberry, because their bodies are covered in photophores, which resemble the seeds of a strawberry. Plus their mantle is kinda strawberry shaped. 🦑 🧪 #Inverts

The party begins on Wednesday!

Opalescent Inshore Squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) lay their eggs in these large "mops" of eggs, which contain a bunch of egg capsules. Each capsule can contain a couple hundred squid eggs, which seems like a lot until you see how big the squids are when they hatch!

This is a pale toadfish, Ambophthalmos angustus. You might have seen pictures of a deep sea blob fish that was popular a few years ago on the internet. That species, and this fish, are both part of the Psychrolutidae family. #MarineLife 🧪

Every night, some crustaceans migrate upwards, up to 1000m from the twilight zone, to feed. They poop on the way down, transferring nutrients to deeper waters. Other species or larval stages maintain depth in the water column by riding gelatinous zooplankton! #Crustmas 🧪🦑

Do you know how sea stars crawl around on the sea floor? On the aboral (top) side of sea stars there’s a light colored opening called a madreporite. It looks like a stone coral, or madrepore, which is where its name is derived. #MarineLife #Inverts 🧪

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It’s amazing the designs evolution stumbles upon. This is a prickly king crab, endemic to New Zealand. Paralomis zealandica, is a member of the family Lithodidae, or deep-sea “crabs.” “Crabs” because they’re not true crabs. They’re more closely related to hermit crabs. #MarineLife #Inverts 🧪

📌 peep my feeds for critters! 🦊 Mammals: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🦉 Birds: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🦑 Marine Life: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🐍 Herps: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🐯 Zoosky: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🐋🦭 Marine Mammalogy: bsky.app/profile/did:... 🦇🔊 Bioacoustics: bsky.app/profile/did:...

You gatta love these little guys. They come up in most trawls, and I’ve seen them on every expedition I’ve done in NZ. They’re aquatic isopods. That means they’re crustaceans (like lobsters & crabs) and are in the same group as terrestrial pill bugs/sow bugs/ rollie pollies. #MarineLife 🧪 #Inverts

So cool! This is near where I work in Antarctica. “Scientists estimate that [glass sponges] can live for more than 10,000 years, possibly 15,000 years maximum. One glass sponge observed by researchers in the Ross Sea, a bay of Antarctica, is thought to be the oldest living animal on the planet.”

I think this one is a bathyteuthis

Mardi Gras squid (Planctoteuthis)! From what I've gathered from the squid folks is the tail could be used to mimic a siphonophore so that a predator chomps the tail & not the body? I do believe the tail eventually falls off, but def look that up yourself. 😉

Forgot to add #MarineLife

Megalocranchia (maybe). #MarineLife #SchmidtOcean Dive 337 Cape Range Canyon #NingalooCanyons​ #OzOceans2020

Also for American Scientist, I wrote about a new citizen citizen video game that helps us process ocean data, interviewing @kakanikatija.bsky.social www.americanscientist.org/blog/science...

A cluster of goose barnacles in a #Humboldt tide pool for #Crustmas. 🤿

Though it’s kind of hard to tell, this a vampire squid, which is a misnomer because this species of cephalopod is neither squid, nor is it an octopus. They sit in their own order called Vampyromorphida, and are genetically closer to octopuses than squids. 🦑🧪 #Invert

Southern shortfin squid (Illex coindetii) lay large eggs masses that look like cat's eye marbles. They are on average a metre in diameter, which is pretty impressive given that the female squids are usually only 25-27 cm in mantle length.

Full moon rising over Monterey Bay and the Stars are out on a King Tide. Such a brilliant diversity! Bat stars, ochre stars, baby blood stars, and brittle stars! #Marinelife #Invert #lowtide #tidepool #intertidal #seastar

Scampi, or known as Kōura Rangi in Te Reo (Māori native language), is a delicacy here in New Zealand. They’re deep-sea clawed lobsters (not prawn) from the family Nephropidae that live in burrows and scavenge for carrion from deceased animals. #marinelife 🧪

My latest episode of Alien Ocean is now out on YouTube! This time, we're talking about brittle stars, and how they're weird, scary, and...wait, heroic? What?? Yes! This eldritch monster is one of the greatest heroes in the ocean! Why? YOU'LL HAVE TO WATCH TO FIND OUT! youtu.be/nRGjDmmiXfg 🦑

A shocking quarter of all known freshwater fish species are currently at risk of extinction. Around 20 percent are impacted directly by climate change and many of them also suffer directly from pollution, including Tasmania's Maugean skate... 🧪🌿🦑🌏 #NatureWriting #WildOz

It infuriates me to see these AI videos of “deep sea animals” pop up on my TikTok because the deep sea is already incredibly fucking weird, there is NO NEED to put human teeth on a freaky fish then stick weird tentacles on its butt. We already have holothurians, acorn worms, tripod fish, ETC.

There are some cool symbiotic relationships in the deep sea. I’ve showcased parasitism, but here’s a mutualistic one between a crustacean and a surfing anemone. The crustacean benefits from extra protection the stinging cells of the anemone provide, as well as additional camouflage. #MarineLife 🧪

There was a storm the other day, so our ship sheltered near Campbell Island. I went to the bridge to work on my thesis and enjoy the storm. It was eerily peaceful. In the distance I thought I could see a lighthouse, but was actually a naturally formed pinnacle.

Many squids have photophores, or bioluminescent organs that use a chemical reaction to produce light. But to take it a step further, some squids actually have photophores on their eyes! 🦑 🧪

Seen on the descent of SOI dive 752. I spied @autsquidsquad.bsky.social ID’d them over on @brachioteuthis.bsky.social Twitter as probably moroteuthopsis for the first squid, and Taonius for the second (taonius and galiteuthis can look similar) #ChileMargin2024 ♥️ Cephalopods

Here’s another very interesting and common marine organism. They’re copepods, albeit, they look almost nothing like typical free-living copepods you may know. This group starts as juveniles looking like most other copepods, but lose their limbs and antennae once they mature. 🦑🧪

Lots of deep-sea fish have special ocular adaptations called a tapetum lucidum. This reflective layer of tissue behind the retina bounces light back through the retina a second time to improve their vision in the dark. Cats have them too! Have you ever seen their eyes shine in the dark? 🦑🧪

So today we have a Headshield slug - technically not a #Nudibranch Chelidonura livida is still very handsome. A voracious predator of flatworms that it finds in shallow sand areas where you often find them swarming. #MarineLife #SeaSlug #Inverts

Doesn’t get much cooler than this dragonfish! These deep-sea predators are black to camouflage well in the dark sea, but have a long lure under their lower jaw with a bioluminescent tip. The lure is believed to attract prey to aid in hunting, and perhaps recognize potential mates. Badass. 🦑🧪

If we’re lucky, we get to do deep vertical mesopelagic trawls. That’s when we get some cool creatures… … like this octopoteuthis, or octopus squid. Named so because it lacks tentacles and has only 8 arms, just like an octopus! But they are squid that lost their tentacles during their evolution. 🦑🧪

Squid-shaped-squid from #SchmidtOcean dive 623 from the #OctoOdyssey expedition. #MarineLife There's also a pretty flatworm in the comments.

A video we made at @mbarinews.bsky.social explaining some functions of #fluorescence in the ocean, and how #bioluminescence is different… but related. 🦑🧪🌊 m.youtube.com/watch?v=whbe...

I had no idea they came with different numbers of legs! As if they couldn't get any better, pycnogonid goes and does it again! #MarineLife

Many fish use swim bladders to help them adjust their buoyancy and depth in the ocean. Deep-sea fish are typically physoclistous, meaning their bladders are closed, like this swim bladder from a cusk eel. I thought it was exceptionally cool because of its unique elongated shape! Plus shiny ✨ 🦑🧪

🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 The NOAA Ocean Guardian Youth Ambassador program provides a new level of engagement for youth aged 13-18 committed to ocean conservation and stewardship of our blue planet. links-1.govdelivery.com/CL0/https:%2...

A thread with some really beautiful examples of why midwater is my favorite place to explore. From #SchmidtOcean dive 556 during their #VentUnderworld expedition. The midwater above vent sites have never failed to have amazing animals like this stunning Vitreledonella (glass octopus)! #MarineLife

Info on every ceph species, at your fingertips? Yes please! Help us finish CephRef (live demo site cephref.org ), a new website for ceph ID & biological info. Please support on gofund.me/5e00ac9a (until Dec 20) & share the link - thank you! 🦑🐙🦑🐙

More parasites! Squeamish beware… Some fish are absolutely crawling with parasites, literally… this species of fish is known to have their guts full of tape worms. 🧪🦑

I can't give y'all cephalopods without showing you one of my fave squids, & the first time the Spirula Spirula (Ram's Horn squid) was filmed in-situ back in Oct. 2020 during #SchmidtOcean dive 402(pt.B) in the Wreck Bay Plunge Pool, Australia. #MarineLife

I'll never tire of sharing these. I stopped looking at my saved image count when it got past 6,000 a couple years back... but that's beside the point. 👀 @ this beautiful Aulacoctena from #SchmidtOcean dive 621 in Tangosed Seamount! Forget AI images, I'll have this instead. #MarineLife