THE THREE HEARTED, BLUE BLOODED SQUID

Eric writes...

I've been thinking about the Humboldt squids, often nicknamed "red devils" that lives on the west coast of the Americas. What really puzzles me is that they have THREE HEARTS!!! They only grow up to 6 ft. and Sperm whales are much bigger and only have one heart, so it can't be its size. Plus both Sperm whales AND "red devils" live in the deep ocean. I just don't get it!! Do all squids have three hearts, or is the Humboldt unique?

Not only do all squids have three hearts but most, if not all cephalopods have three hearts. Cephalopods include squid, octopuses, and nautili (and yes, those are the proper plurals). They are among the "blue blood" of the animal kingdom. I mean literally, they are among the blue blood. They have blue blood and three hearts. Unlike mammals who have hemoglobin in their blood to carry oxygen, they have hemocyanin, hence the color of their blood. To move their blue blood, they have three hearts, one heart to pump blood though each of their two sets of gills and one heart to pump blood through the rest of their bodies. When you think of it, that is not all that different than us. We have but one heart but it has four chambers. Two chambers pump blood through our lungs and two pump the blood through the rest of the body.

I believe the problem arises that blood traveling through the lungs (or gills), travels through very small tubes (capillaries) while blood through the rest of the body travels through large tubes (arteries and veins). The resistance is much greater in the smaller tubes so much of the pressure is used up just getting oxygen into the blood, therefore, different bodies have overcome this problem different ways. Some earthworms have four pairs of hearts, others have five. A cockroach has a chain of hearts, in all totaling to 13, though some consider it one 13 chambered heart. Jelly fish. like some people I know, have no hearts at all!

This brings us all to one of the most amazing octopuses in history. The animal's owner, Captain Queeg goes into a harbor bar with his pet octopus and says 'I'll bet $50.00 that no one here has a musical instrument that this here octopus can't play.'

The people in the bar look around and someone fetches out an old mandolin. The octopus has a look, picks it up, tunes it, and starts playing a few choruses of 'Rawhide.' Captain Queeg quickly pockets the fifty bucks.

The next bar patron comes up with a trumpet. The octopus takes the horn, loosens up the keys, licks its chops and starts playing 'Stella By Starlight.' Yet another $50.00 is handed over to the smiling captain.

The bar owner has been watching all of this and disappears into the back room, returning a few minutes later with a set of bagpipes under his arm. He puts them on the bar and says to the captain and his octopus,

'Now, I'll bet you $100.00 your damn octopus can't play that!'

The octopus takes a look at the bagpipes, lifts it up, turns it over, has another look from a different angle and then starts the process over again.

Puzzled, the captain comes over to the octopus and says, 'What are you waiting around for? Hurry up and play the damn thing!'

'Play it, hell!' frowned the octopus. 'As soon as I figure out how to get her pajamas off, we're outta here!'