Meet The Glass Squids 🦑

Meet the glass squids 🦑

Glass squids live in the boundless waters of the twilight zone. With no protective shell and nowhere to hide, they have to get creative.

Glass squids use an invisibility cloak to stay safe in these dark waters. Like other cephalopods, they are covered in tiny pigment sacs called chromatophores. When their chromatophores are closed, their skin is basically see-through.

When their cover is blown, they expand their chromatophores to darken their appearance. Or they might simply ink and jet away!

Glass squids also have special light organs that mask the shadow of their more opaque body parts. This helps them maintain their cloak of invisibility and hide from both predators and prey.

But the future of all midwater animals is in jeopardy. The deep seafloor contains many precious minerals critical to modern technologies—like the batteries in your phone. Mining these metals will release plumes of wastewater that will cloud the ocean's twilight zone.

We urgently need to identify the impacts deep-sea mining will have across all ocean habitats, from the midwater to the seafloor.

Help protect the glass squid by sharing what you've learned. Together we can build a community of ocean champions!

Learn more about this and other fascinating animals of the deep on our website.

Daily fish fact #276

Goblin shark!

This deep sea shark is able to rapidly extend its jaws, quickly engulfing prey!

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invertebabe

2 years ago

Deep Sea Beauties

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invertebabe

1 year ago

A scorpion and a crawfish.

Thought about making this a longer comic but for now it’s just me fooling around with ink + digital painting

(lyrics are from Half Life by the Symposium)

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invertebabe

2 years ago

Today is Wet Beast Wednesday!

Today's wet beast is: Blanket Octopus

Olive's Wet Beast Fact: these venomous beauties range drastically in size, with the males around the size of a walnut, and the females up to 6 feet long. Personally, I think they look more like Cinderella's torn up dress than they do a blanket, but whatever.

Stay tuned for more Wet Beast Wednesdays!

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invertebabe

2 years ago

Blanket octopus (Joseph Elayani)

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invertebabe

8 years ago

Crowdsurfer for The Frights at Beach Goth, Santa Ana, CA

Tags

photography concert photography beach goth the observatory the frights

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invertebabe

2 years ago

Greetings, chordate comrades.

I’m attempting to export yet another culture we’ve had for the past few years on the dying birdsite. Basically three times a year we’d use the hashtag #InverteFest to post unsolicited bug and slug pics and YELL ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LOVE THEM.

It could be pics from your garden, OCs, doodles, shitposts, crab memes, whatever. Just remember this is strictly a NO BONE ZONE.

But if you’re going out and feeling like contributing to community science, we have a project on iNaturalist for you to join.

See you in late December.

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