Programs Blog

July 1, 2025

Authors: Ethan L., Jason D.

Today, we did something that I never thought I’d get the chance to do: We dissected a squid! Earlier in the program when we visited MBL and saw one of the tour guides feed squid to striped bass and gave us a light introduction to squid anatomy, I really wanted to learn more about them. The way they propel water, where their ink sac was, and their pens were all extremely interesting to me. Luckily for me, I was informed yesterday that we would be doing a squid dissection today!

After we woke up this morning, we went over to the lab at Madden and put on our gloves to get ready to dissect the squid. I sat down with my friends and started reading the instructions on what to do. We got to label and find parts both externally and internally. We found parts outside the squid such as the mantle, the fins, the arms, the tentacles, the eyes, and the chromatophores. It was really cool how the squid skin changed color when we rubbed the chromatophores! After, we took out our scalpels and opened up the squid. It was really cool how the squid had 3 hearts and how their mouths were so complex. I now see where the word for a “pen” comes from – the cartilage inside of the squid looks a lot like a pen and with the combination of the ink from the ink sac, we were able to write our names on the paper with extreme clarity. In the end, Jason decided to keep the pen and the squid dissection was really fun!