Calamarigraphy? Aquarium gets silly with weird squid facts
The Monterey Bay Aquarium offers up a thing that makes you go hmm.
This internal shell is called a "pen"
Ah, squid. To marine biologists, they're fascinating life forms. To many others, they're appetizers. But we can all agree the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California knows how to make them sound utterly captivating.
The aquarium took to Twitter on Monday to casually mention that squid have an ink sac and an internal shell called a "pen."
realizing that squid have an ink sac and an internal shell called a pen so we’re living just a few short evolutionary steps away from calamarigraphy and honestly there goes the rest of today
— Monterey Bay Aquarium (@MontereyAq) July 8, 2019
"So we're living just a few short evolutionary steps away from calamarigraphy and honestly there goes the rest of today," the aquarium declared.
But there's more. The aquarium then shared a video of the removal of the pen, a long, thin translucent internal shell, from a market squid in the facility's food preparation room.
Voilà: Squid pen! pic.twitter.com/Vf6557MGlN
— Monterey Bay Aquarium (@MontereyAq) July 8, 2019
"California market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) is a sustainable seafood that we feed to our sea otters, leopard sharks and other aquarium residents," another tweet noted.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is known for its pun-filled Twitter feed and funny ASCII art. The account even called Apple out on the accuracy of its squid emoji late last year.
As for the obscure art of calamarigraphy, it isn't too far-fetched. Humans historically used cephalopod ink for writing and drawing, up through the 19th century, so your dream of becoming a calamarigrapher could come true.
