Mooseblood

Wasp-mimic clearwing moth, Euhagena emphytiformis, Sesiidae

Found in the United States

Photo 1 by ellen5

reblog to give your mutuals a BLÅHAJ

Foamy waters

Cloudy

Photos by Meg Mindlin

Do you like Squid Facts? 🔲Yes 🔲No

This valentines day, we thought you might need a little help from cephalopods to celebrate. Get a pack of 20 cards for your classroom, your coworkers, your neighborhood, frankly anyone who needs both a valentine AND a little bit of science to boot.

Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/

Proceeds benefit science education nonprofit Skype a Scientist AND the graduate student who designed these cards who is studying octopuses (Meg Mindlin @invertebabe!). Meg is trying to afford to get to a cephalopod neuroscience conference later this year and these cards will help her get there 🫡

They, of course, come with the classic heart stickers, a range of shades of pink and purple included.

Invertebrate exhibit— Natural History Museum, Los Angeles.

Skeleton of Mola Mola as Mola rotunda - the Ocean sunfish

Spolia Atlantica. Bidrag til Kundskab om Klump- eller Maanefiskene (Molidae). Japetus Steenstrup and Chr Lutken Published 1898

Sarah I want you to know that I work at a zoo so I got 40 squid Valentines for my entire department. These are going to be a hit I know it

Omg I love this so much.

Everybody else, there's still about a week left to get these before Valentines Day. Get 'em at Squidfacts.bigcartel.com

Sorority Noise

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.