Cephalopod Awareness Days

This page needs some clean-up after the launch of Cephalopodcast 4.0. Preferably before October 2010.

October 8-10, 2009

Welcome to the 3rd Annual International Cephalopod Awareness Days.

• Thursday, October 8 – Octopus Day, for all the eight-armed species
• Friday, October 9 – Nautilus Night, a time for all the lesser-known extant and extinct cephalopods
• Saturday, October 10 – Squid Day/Cuttlefish Day, or Squidturday, covering the tentacular species

What are cephalopods?

Ceph·a·lo·pods are a group of exclusively marine mollusks that include squid, octopus and nautilus. They are closely related to snails, slugs and clams. They are characterized by well-developed eyes and sucker-bearing tentacles. The word is from the combination of the Greek kefale and pous, roughly meaning head feet. Some folks pronouce it sefalopod, others say kefalopod.

Why October 8?

International Cephalopod Awareness Day was established in 2007 by members of TONMO, The Octopus News Magazine Online forum. While not (yet) an event sanctioned by any official governing body, Cephalopod Awareness Day is meant to bring attention to the diversity, conservation and biology of the world’s cephalopods. The date of October 8 was chosen as an auspicious occasion for appreciating animals with a combination of 8 or 10 appendages. Octopus have eight arms and squid have eight arms and two tentacles. So the eighth day of the tenth month seemed like the best choice. This year at Cephalopodcast.com we are celebrating for three days just for the fun of it.

Why Celebrate?

People are engrossed by the seeming “alien intelligence” of these marine invertebrates and their remarkable abilities. But despite our familiarity with them, both for food and fascination, remarkably little is know about even the most common species.

• Cephalopods are represented in the fossil record dating back 500 million years.
• There are about 800 species of living cephalopods known to science, with many more as yet to be discovered.
• Since ancient times, cephalopods have been a recurring motif in myth, arts and literature and they remain a subject of popular culture today.
• Cephalopod are an important fishery with catches steadily increasing over the last 30 years, from about 1 million metric tonnes in 1970 to more than 3 million tonnes in 2001.
• There are no species of cephalopod currently listed on the UN endangered species (with one, possibly mythic, exception). However, this is more a testament to how little we know about these animals than a true indication of their conservation needs.

In spite of the large number of studies and research carried out on cephalopods, especially in recent decades, the life history of the majority of species is still unknown, and our knowledge of the life cycles of the members of this interesting class remains fragmentary. Information comes from studies in the field as well as from observations in the laboratory. However, little is known of life history for species that are not targets of regular fisheries, and only a handful of cephalopod species have been reared successfully in the laboratory.

From, Cephalopods of the World, a free UN FAO illustrated fact sheet on nearly every livingcephalopod.

Guidelines for submission

Send your submissions to pulpodcast at gmail . com or leave a comment below

The editors at Cephalopodcast.com invite anyone in the blogosphere to participate in the three day celebration. Bloggers, artist, poets and musicians are encouraged to create one or more works to mark the occasion and submit them for aggregation on this special Cephalopod Awareness Days commemorative page. Topics can be scientific, cultural or fictional. As long as they somehow include cephalopod awareness, they will be considered. If you don’t have a blog, but still want to contribute, contact the editors for ways your creation can be hosted there.

If you write a blog entry for Cephalopod Awareness Days, October 8-10, and want to add it to this commemorative page, just send us the following:

• post URL
• author name
• brief summary (~100 words or less)
• tag your blog entry with keyword #icad

You can write whatever you like and make it as long as you want. It could just be a picture with caption. Just keep your excerpts PG/family-friendly. If your link leads to a site that is randy or violent (in our editorial opinion) we will make a note of that. You can write about whatever cephalopods you want on any day you want.

Suggested topics

Here are some ideas for topics to write about:

Cephalopod biology, your favorite octopus species, cephalopod recipes (hey, it happens!), music inspired by cephalopods, mythological cephalopods, cephalopods featured in games and gaming, cephalopod tattoos, squid toys, your favorite cartoon.

A call to artists! Promo submission

Artists and entrepreneurs: we’ll be posting free Cephalopod Day promotional images in the sidebar here. Promote your love of cephalopods loud and proud! If you create one, we will include a link back to your wares. They just need to adhere to the following guidelines:

• 200x200px in jpg or png format.
• Incorporate an image of something cephalopodal, be it octopus, squid, fossil or cuttlefish. As long as it has all or part of a cephalopod in it, that’s OK. Can be a drawing, photo, sketch, painting, CGI, etc
• The URL of your emporium/shop/site.
• Keep the promo image PG, family-friendly. Your site can be whatever you like, but we will make a note if it goes to a site that is randy or violent (in our editorial opinion).
• You must have the rights to use the image and give us the right to post it here.
• You must allow others the right to repost your image for the purposes of promoting Cephalopod Awareness Days
• Visibly include the words “cephalopodday.org” somewhere in the image.
• No animations.
• Submit it to us by 10/8 to be relevant.

Announcements

• Squidmas Creeps and Cephalopod Awareness Days
• Facebook event page