THE INSIDER: Keep mouth shut and eyes open
Scientists unravel the mystery of the ‘cock-eyed’ strawberry squid
For years fishermen have been puzzled by a cephalopod known as the strawberry squid, which has mismatching eyes — the left is big, yellow and bulges, while the right is far smaller and clear. Now National Geographic is reporting that scientists at California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute have determined after watching 30 years’ of video footage of the creature that it swims diagonally so that one eye faces upward and the other down. The smaller, downward-facing eye helps the squid detect bioluminescent creatures below; the bigger upward-facing eye deals with incoming sunshine. “The kinds of eyes you need to see bioluminescence are different from those you need to see basic ambient light,” says senior author and biologist Sonke Johnson. “In the case of this cock-eyed squid, they chose one eye for each.” The Insider has nothing to add apart from the empirically evident, and thus scientific, observation that the term “cock-eyed” is as funny now as it was when he was 12. Wh...
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