Fernando Á. Fernández-Álvarez

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

Now that I see it again, maybe the small things are rotifers. More magnification would be helpful

The crustacean: I vote for Tanaidacea. The two small round worms in the background move like rhabdocoels to me, but I cannot exclude other worm-like things such a large ciliate protists (peritrichs?). Everything so out of my alley, so don’t trust me.

Two Assistant Prof positions in Geography at Durham, deadline for applications next week!

The costs of competition in distributing scarce research funds | PNAS Research funding systems fundamentally influence how science operates. This paper aims to analyze the allocation of competitive research funding fr...

Researchers spend approximately 45% of their time on administrative activities related to #grants rather than actual #research. The current #competition in research #funding has significant drawbacks; evidence-based improvements of the funding system are required: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

And research institutes are CONSTANTLY cutting the budget for admin staff, forcing researchers to waste more and more of their time on things they aren't best suited for, either skills wise or training wise

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.

🧪🦑

Postdoctoral position, Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER.
The postdoc will analyze existing long-term (25 y) data sets on plants and invertebrates at ten sites collected by the GCE-LTER. gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/private/app/...

A colonial animal known as a siphonophore that looks like a mass of oblong balloons all tied in the center with what looks like some curly ribbon coming off of it. Floating in the middle of the ocean, likely hunting.

A red colonial animal known as a siphonophore. There is a section of red swimming bells in the upper left corner. Coming off of it is a cluster of other individuals, many of which have left long trailing tentacles in the water.

A peach colored slime star sitting on the seafloor. The arms have a bumpy texture and the membrane between the arms is smooth.

A colonial animal known as a siphonophore that looks like a mass of oblong balloons all tied in the center with what looks like some curly ribbon coming off of it. There is a shiny looking gas float at the top of the screen. Floating in the middle of the ocean, likely hunting.

A mix of nice zooms from SOI back in November off the coast of Chile. The first and the last one are two different bathyphysa siphonophores, aka the flying spaghetti monster. Then there is a marrus orthocanna siphonophore and a hymenaster slime star. #ChileMargin2024 #Siphonophriend

The tail of a Grenadier, also known as a rattail, a deep-sea fish. This one has what looks to be a cyst embedded in its skin.

The cyst on the tail of the Grenadier has been cut open to reveal a parasite living within. It looks like a small grub, about 1cm in size.

A closeup of the parasite next to a ruler. It has an almost olive green hue. Tasty? 😅

Parasites do not get enough attention in marine research. They’re absolutely everywhere when we collect specimens. Eyes, tongues, gills, and even burrowed under the skin like this one I found embedded in a Grenadier’s tail. I have no idea what it is, just that it’s freaking cool.
🧪

Thanks for rating, Jeff! ☺️

It’s nice to film a Bathyteuthis while it’s reconsidering all its life decissions… Look at its face!!! 🤭