Saturday, May 03, 2008

Colossal squid

The dissection of the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) specimen from Antarctica has been getting a lot of coverage. Pangs of homesickness, especially seeing Steve O'Shea enthusing about the beast. Steve was a contemporary at Auckland Uni when I was a student. I remember him being deeply disappointed in me because I moved away from doing alpha taxonomy of crustaceans (describing taxa such as Pinnotheres atrinicola, right) to fussing with cladistics and computers. Looking at Steve on YouTube, I think it's clear who's having more fun. Maybe I should have stuck to taxonomy after all...