Yes, and I probably thought of it and took the lesser of two evils.
Today’s special animal friends are the Cockeyed Squid, a group of seventeen species and subspecies belonging to the genus Histioteuthis and the family Histioteuthidae. They are only one of thousands of members of the super amazing Cephalopoda class, which includes octopi, cuttlefish, nautilus, and other molluscs, some of which we will explore in future episodes, unless I take a sledgehammer to this computer – which is driving me MAD - and run off to live in the wilds with Son B (”Thor”).
Anyway, the Cockeyed Squid get their name from the fact that their right eye is small, round, blue, and sunken, while their left eye is more than twice as large, tubular, and yellow-green, and it bulges out, turning toward the top of the head. Weird and gross, right? But everything in nature has a purpose – except maybe the peacock’s tail ... get a job, fellas – and that includes these eyes. In 2017, researchers at Duke University, which looks like Hogwarts, discovered that the larger eye is used to see ambient sunlight, while the smaller eye detects bioluminescence, including the glow of some species of this squid. Honestly, don’t you wish your eyes could do that?
One species is Histioteuthis reversa, the Reverse Jewel Squid. It has a mantle (the thick part that encloses the body mass) length of about 7-1/2” inches. Then there’s its head, with the different kinds of eyes. The head extrudes four pairs of arms and two tentacles; these are somewhat longer than the mantle. The arms and tentacles have suckers with gripping teeth. This species is bioluminescent. There are many light-emitting photopores on its mantle and around its eyes.
The Reverse Jewel Squid is found in the Mediterranean Sea, the eastern Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. It is found mainly at depths between 1,500 and 2,500 feet. Predators of adults include sharks, whales, and dolphins.
Not much is known about the feeding habits of cockeyed squid, but some species are known to eat fish, crustaceans, and other squid. They search for prey by sight and catch it with their tentacles, which bring the prey in reach of the arms, which carry it to their sharp, tearing beak. They eat the flesh off and throw away uneaten remains.
All the species of Histioteuthis are uniquely weird. Many have membranes between their tentacles, giving them a bat-crossed-with-Cthulhu appearance that you don’t want to see in your dreams. To the extent their populations have been evaluated, they are species “of least concern” to environmentalists.