SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A mysterious squid that lives along the Pacific coast could be one of the big winners in adapting to climate change. The squid is very large, very fast and very mean, but it's also willing to adapt.
The wild-looking animals are on the move with just two things on their mind: Finding food and making babies. The squid can get up to six feet long and weigh 100 pounds, and they are survivors.
"It can tolerate low oxygen," said Stanford Prof. William Gilly, Ph.D. "It can tolerate extreme temperatures, both cold and warm, and it can migrate wherever it wants. It's a very powerful swimmer."
Gilly is with Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station and is an expert on Humboldt squid.
"They are sort of the ultimate predator," said Gilly.
In the middle of those tentacles, there is a razor-sharp beak.
"When it grabs food, it engulfs the food in the arm and brings it to up the mouth, then it probably just sits there like a little mincing machine," said Gilly.
Gilly knows that first hand: He was badly bitten by a squid a few years ago and has the scars to prove it.
Read more here ...
Showing posts with label Humboldt squid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humboldt squid. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Shrinkage of Humboldt squid puzzles scientists
A mysterious force has stunted the growth of Humboldt squid in the Sea of Cortez, and marine biologists suspect a change in the weather is to blame.
The ravenous animals normally weigh up to 30 pounds when they spawn at 12 to 18 months of age, but Stanford biologists have discovered a group of the squid that weigh only a pound apiece and spawn at less than 6 months old.
The rubbery animals with their long tentacles are a precious livelihood for Mexican commercial fishermen along the Gulf of California, and they're a prized prey for gringo sportsmen.
But to William Gilly, a marine biologist at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, they're a scientific puzzle.
In a paper recently published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress, Gilly said he suspects the squid's shrinkage was caused by the abrupt warming of the gulf's water as a result of an El Niño that was detected during the 2009-10 winter.
The El Niño phenomenon, also known as the Southern Oscillation, occurs periodically when high surface air pressure over the Western Pacific pushes temperatures up throughout the tropical Eastern Pacific, including the Gulf of California, causing water temperatures to rise.
In September 2009, Gilly said, he and his colleagues cruised the Gulf of California, better known as the Sea of Cortez, and found abundant squid in their normal spawning grounds and their usual size.
"But in May, a year later, we couldn't find any normal-sized squid in their normal spawning grounds," he said. "Instead, the area was full of smaller squid - really small."
A month later, Gilly said, the squid were still very small and spawning in what was formerly the normal spawning area for normal-size squid, while one group of full-size ones had migrated and were thriving 100 miles north around the gulf's Midriff Islands.
Read more here ...
The ravenous animals normally weigh up to 30 pounds when they spawn at 12 to 18 months of age, but Stanford biologists have discovered a group of the squid that weigh only a pound apiece and spawn at less than 6 months old.
The rubbery animals with their long tentacles are a precious livelihood for Mexican commercial fishermen along the Gulf of California, and they're a prized prey for gringo sportsmen.
But to William Gilly, a marine biologist at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, they're a scientific puzzle.
In a paper recently published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress, Gilly said he suspects the squid's shrinkage was caused by the abrupt warming of the gulf's water as a result of an El Niño that was detected during the 2009-10 winter.
The El Niño phenomenon, also known as the Southern Oscillation, occurs periodically when high surface air pressure over the Western Pacific pushes temperatures up throughout the tropical Eastern Pacific, including the Gulf of California, causing water temperatures to rise.
In September 2009, Gilly said, he and his colleagues cruised the Gulf of California, better known as the Sea of Cortez, and found abundant squid in their normal spawning grounds and their usual size.
"But in May, a year later, we couldn't find any normal-sized squid in their normal spawning grounds," he said. "Instead, the area was full of smaller squid - really small."
A month later, Gilly said, the squid were still very small and spawning in what was formerly the normal spawning area for normal-size squid, while one group of full-size ones had migrated and were thriving 100 miles north around the gulf's Midriff Islands.
Read more here ...
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Jumbo squid survive deep ocean 'dead zones'
Jumbo squid have developed a novel strategy that allows them to maintain a super-charged predatory lifestyle.
After spending the night hunting fish near the surface, the squid dive into deeper cold waters to rest.
To survive in these depths, where little oxygen remains, the squid shut down their metabolism, before cranking it up to rise and resume their hunt.
The discovery explains for the first time how jumbo squid survive in these deep water dead zones.
Details are published in the journal Progress in Oceanography.
Jumbo squid, also known as Humboldt squid, are large, powerful predators measuring up to 2m long and 50kg in mass.
Living in the eastern Pacific, the squid are calculated to consume more than four million tonnes of food per year, primarily fish known as myctophids.
But that has raised questions over how the squid maintain their lifestyle.
It was known that each day the squid migrate down into the ocean, descending hundreds of metres, before rising again to hunt fish nearer the surface at night.
Within these intermediate depths, however, are pronounced zones of low oxygen, known as oxygen minimum layers, which can extend for hundreds of metres deep and several kilometres wide.
"Jumbo squid display oxygen consumption rates that are among the highest in the oceans. This high energy demand reflects the low efficiency of jet propulsion."
"So the question is how can they survive in these deep, cold and oxygen depleted zones?" asks Dr Rui Rosa from the Center of Oceanography, University of Lisbon in Portugal.
The answer, scientists have discovered, is that these large squid shut down their bodies, the first time squid have been shown to respond in this way.
Dr Rosa undertook a study into jumbo squid physiology with Dr Brad Seibel from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, US.
Together, they captured 71 jumbo squid from the wild and tested their oxygen demands in sea water aquaria held onboard a research ship.
The researchers measured how the squid reacted to water containing high and low amounts of oxygen, and colder temperatures, mimicking conditions found at the surface and in the oceanic dead zones.
When placed in low oxygen water, the squid shut down their metabolism by over 80 per cent.
This extraordinary ability allows the jumbo squid to exploit habitats that other competing large marine predators cannot reach, say the researchers.
It also allows the squid to stay out of the reach of predators that might prey on the squid themselves, as top fish predators such as marlin, tuna and sailfish cannot descend into these cold, oxygen depleted zones.
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
After spending the night hunting fish near the surface, the squid dive into deeper cold waters to rest.
To survive in these depths, where little oxygen remains, the squid shut down their metabolism, before cranking it up to rise and resume their hunt.
The discovery explains for the first time how jumbo squid survive in these deep water dead zones.
Details are published in the journal Progress in Oceanography.
Jumbo squid, also known as Humboldt squid, are large, powerful predators measuring up to 2m long and 50kg in mass.
Living in the eastern Pacific, the squid are calculated to consume more than four million tonnes of food per year, primarily fish known as myctophids.
But that has raised questions over how the squid maintain their lifestyle.
It was known that each day the squid migrate down into the ocean, descending hundreds of metres, before rising again to hunt fish nearer the surface at night.
Within these intermediate depths, however, are pronounced zones of low oxygen, known as oxygen minimum layers, which can extend for hundreds of metres deep and several kilometres wide.
"Jumbo squid display oxygen consumption rates that are among the highest in the oceans. This high energy demand reflects the low efficiency of jet propulsion."
"So the question is how can they survive in these deep, cold and oxygen depleted zones?" asks Dr Rui Rosa from the Center of Oceanography, University of Lisbon in Portugal.
The answer, scientists have discovered, is that these large squid shut down their bodies, the first time squid have been shown to respond in this way.
Dr Rosa undertook a study into jumbo squid physiology with Dr Brad Seibel from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, US.
Together, they captured 71 jumbo squid from the wild and tested their oxygen demands in sea water aquaria held onboard a research ship.
The researchers measured how the squid reacted to water containing high and low amounts of oxygen, and colder temperatures, mimicking conditions found at the surface and in the oceanic dead zones.
When placed in low oxygen water, the squid shut down their metabolism by over 80 per cent.
This extraordinary ability allows the jumbo squid to exploit habitats that other competing large marine predators cannot reach, say the researchers.
It also allows the squid to stay out of the reach of predators that might prey on the squid themselves, as top fish predators such as marlin, tuna and sailfish cannot descend into these cold, oxygen depleted zones.
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)