Fernando Á. Fernández-Álvarez

Cropped image showing an engraving of an octopus

Full-page engraving from a book. It shows an octopus lying on the seabed, with a squid and a cuttlefish coming towards. The cuttlefish is making a cloud. The engraving is captioned: 'Plate XI. A Poulpe. A Cuttle-Fish Making His Cloud. A Calmar'.

Good morning to everyone but especially to all the octopuses, for today is their special day!

To celebrate World Octopus Day, here's an illustration of an octopus from the book 'The World of the Sea' by Moquin Tandon, published in 1869.

📷 Reserve 591.92 TAN

#WorldOctopusDay #OctopusDay #RareBooks

Foto del equipo de trabajo en Xixón de ECOMARG

@lavozdeasturias.bsky.social se hace eco del trabajo del grupo de investigación ECOMARG, liderado por la investigadora @pilarrl.bsky.social.

Su labor se centra en conocer los fondos marinos para protegerlos.
#SponBIODIV
#BIODIV_A6
#BIODIV_A3
#MICROPLASTUR

www.lavozdeasturias.es/noticia/inas...

Foto de Inés en delante del microscopio con el que analizará los organismos filtradores en busca de microplásticos.

Inés Fernández estará con nosotros hasta finales de 2026 trabajando en el proyecto "MICROPLASTUR: Microplásticos asociados a organismos filtradores en el medio acuático astur: Porifera", financiado por @gobasturias.bsky.social

Independent genomic trajectories shape adaptation to life on land across animal lineages How animals repeatedly adapted to life on land is a central question in evolutionary biology. While terrestrialisation occurred independently across animal phyla, it remains unclear whether shared gen...

How did animals repeatedly conquer land? 🌊➡️⛰️ We analysed ~1,000 gene repertoires (24M genes!) from all animal phyla to uncover how this happened. Work led by @gemmaeling.bsky.social & Klara Eleftheriadi, both first coauthors of this titanic effort!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Big shout out to all the collaborators, particularly @cefafalopodo.bsky.social @aubombarely.bsky.social @vargaschavezc.bsky.social Judit Salces-Ortiz & Nuria Escudero, for endless adventures together while working on this project! 🙏

Here is all the more detailed information regarding each individual workshop:

For any information regarding Workshop 2 you can reach out to @cefafalopodo.bsky.social

Here is all of the information regarding workshops
www2.aeplan.co.jp/ciac2025/p_s...

Workshops range from: Cephalopod fisheries management; cryptic biodiversity; Cephalopod Health Management; and using AI to unlock new frontiers in cephalopod research.

Planned Schedule for CIAC, note that we are also planning to host a 'Cephalopod Research Network" Dinner on Monday October 27th at 7PM EST to get to know about our fellow members some more!

Greetings all Cephalopod researchers! If you have not been keeping up with all of the news regarding CIAC, I will share everything that I possibly can here!

Anything else I can provide, please let me know

Best,
Austin
#CIAC
#CephalopodResearch
#Cephalopods
#Cephalopoda
#Cephalopod

Wir möchten Euch diesen Artikel vorstellen, in dem unser Kollege Fernando (@cefafalopodo.bsky.social) über die Kopffüßer der Balearen interviewt wird. Wir hoffen, dass er Euch dabei hilft, Euer Deutsch zu üben.
www.mallorcazeitung.es/umwelt/2025/...

What's more, another specimen found in the stomach of a sperm whale from the Antarctic was not found to fit into any Oegopsid family, described here as a new species: Mobydickia poseidonii! I wonder if you can guess the inspiration...(2/2) 🐋🦑🧪
@linneansociety.bsky.social
@cefafalopodo.bsky.social

Cryptic biodiversity challenges assessments of global biodiversity & ecosystem health, including in the ocean. Here, morphology & DNA of Ancistrocheirus lesueurii was studied, revealing ~6 cryptic species! You've gotta be squidding me...🌍🧪🦑 (1/2)
academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Equipo de trabajo del COX delante del pesquero Saiñas.

Reunión de trabajo con la tripulación del Saiñas, en el puente del barco.

Comprobando las puertas de trabajo de la red de arrastre y la posible interacción con el lander antiarrastre.

Seguimos con el proyecto #DILAN #PLEAMAR reuniéndonos con la tripulación del Saiñas para decidir la zona y detalles de la maniobra de la campaña de septiembre.
Veremos si hay éxito con los nuevos lander capaces de soportar el paso de una red de arrastre.
#FEMPA
@fbiodiversidad.bsky.social

This year's Squidmas samples are from sub-Antarctic waters. This is Galiteuthis, a 'glass' squid (Cranchiidae, same family the colossal squid). There are undescribed species in this genus so looking forward to genetic results! #SQXmas2025

This is a young Moroteuthopsis, a warty hooked squid (family Onychoteuthidae)

We've had a couple of cock-eyed or jeweled squid species (family Histioteuthidae); this is a nice H. macrohista, one of the more extreme examples of tiny mantle (yes, that's the whole thing!) compared to head & arms. See also distinctive long arm-tip photophores. #SQXmas2025

#SQXmas2025 continues. On the larger end of the scale, a hefty warty hooked squid, Onykia sp.

And a teensy glass squid (cranchiid), Liocranchia
#SQXmas2025

this footage is notable because while blackwater photographers encounter larval ancistrocheirus quite often (if you search for ‘sharpear enope squid’ you will almost entirely find blackwater photos of it) images of adults in situ is extremely rare

"UFO" Knoll | SOI Divestream 690 YouTube video by Schmidt Ocean

here’s an incredible in situ encounter with an adult ancistrocheirus, taken by ROV SuBastian of @schmidtocean.bsky.social during a 2024 expedition: www.youtube.com/live/-ky9jTc...

Diamondback Squid (Thysanoteuthis rhombus) Diamondback Squid in November 2020 by Karl Questel

ancistrocheirus is notable within the family for being much larger. i joke that it’s like what you’d get if a firefly squid decided it wanted to do its best impression of a diamondback squid:

www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Firefly Squid (Watasenia scintillans) Firefly Squid from 本州, 富山県, JP on April 28, 2025 at 11:01 PM by kisaland

to put ancistrocheirus in context with other squid you might be more familiar with if you aren’t a squid taxonomist:

it’s a in a family known for having a large number of photophores, the enoploteuthids. the firefly squid is also in this family.

www.inaturalist.org/observations...

in plain english, this is a really cool paper that does a more thorough review of existing specimens of ancistrocheirus and finds several new species. a surprise finding was that one specimen wasn’t ancistrocheirus at all, but something so different it had to be placed in a new family and genus

mobydickia was chosen as the genus name due to it being found in a sperm whale stomach and almost being entirely depigmented (basically albino in appearance, like moby dick)

poseidonii was chosen as the species name due to the resemblance of the tentacle hook morphology to a trident

identification schematic for mobydickia poseidonii. starting from top left moving clockwise, there are: dorsal and ventral full body photos and sketches of the specimen, arm sucker photographs, tentacle hook photographs, photographs of the beak, a diagram of the radula, and a photograph of the gladius

absolutely wild finding that a specimen previously identified as ancistrocheirus, retrieved from a sperm whale stomach, was so different from any known oegopsid that it was placed in a new family and genus. it’s entirely depigmented except around the eyes.

mobydickia poseidonii

Diversity in the squid family Ancistrocheiridae and description of a new family of the order Oegopsida (Cephalopoda) Abstract. Cryptic biodiversity poses challenges to the accurate description and assessment of global biodiversity and ecosystem health. In this work, the m

new paper from arnold et al, including @cefafalopodo.bsky.social, revising ancistrocheirus to include new species based on morphological and molecular analysis academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

🧪🦑

Fernando Fernández-Álvarez, @cefafalopodo.bsky.social se incorpora con un contrato Ramón y Cajal de la @ageinves.bsky.social.
Investiga patrones de biodiversidad en medios marinos mediante el uso de técnicas genómicas de depredadores, parásitos y microbioma 🦈🐙🪱🦠🧑‍🔬🧑‍💻

¡Bienvenido!

❗📝Nuevo comunicado
¿Quién no ha sufrido violencia burocrática en la carrera investigadora?
Quizá no le ponías nombre, pero todas hemos pasado por los terribles trámites burocráticos (1/2)
🔗 fji.precarios.org/contra-la-vi...

Alien Polydora (Annelida: Spionidae) oysters’ pests in the Adriatic Sea In this project, researchers from the University of Bologna, in Italy (Federica Costantini, Barbara Mikac, and Eugenio Fossi) and the University of Dubrovnik in Croatia (Marijana Pećarević and Kruno Bonačić) join their forces to study alien species of the polychaete genus Polydora, invading farmed oysters in the Adriatic Sea, with the support of BGE funding. Aquaculture is one of the main vectors for the introduction and transport of alien species in the Mediterranean Sea. Recently, researchers

New Biodiversity Genomics Europe case study: Researchers from Unibo and UNIDUcro are studying invasive Polydora species affecting farmed #oysters in the Adriatic Sea 🦪🌊

➡️ www.erga-biodiversity.eu/post/alien-p...

#genomes for #biodiversity #MarineBiodiversity #InvasiveSpecies