Meet Dr. Sarah McAnulty: Hawaii’s Leading Squid Biologist and Adventure Guide
Sarah McAnulty is not your average marine biologist. She conducts fieldwork in Hawaii, wading through the ocean to study the immune cells of the bobtail squid, but she’s also a vocal science education advocate. Sarah is the founder of Skype A Scientist, a program that matches scientists with classrooms and groups of adults for Q&A sessions. Her goal is to combat the rise of false information available online, and to give people the chance to speak with real scientists. Her egalitarian approach has garnered a huge and enthusiastic following. Her science-and-squid focused Twitter has more than 35,000 followers, and, since its inception in 2017, Skype A Scientist has hosted 7,000 scientist in 15,000 classrooms across 43 countries.
Beyond the science itself, Sarah aims to challenge the public’s perception of scientists. Sarah plays the ukulele, makes a killer sweet potato pizza, plays water polo, and designs squid stickers. She also leads the trip Science After Dark: Spotting Squids in the Tides of Oahu.
What led you to the world of squid and why are you passionate about it?
I’ve been super into squid science since I was a little kid. I discovered them in a video about the ocean that my mom and I borrowed from the library. About halfway through the video, twilight zone music played, and they introduced the cuttlefish, a close relative of the squid. These little footballs of fury will pass black bars across their body to confuse prey. It’s incredible to watch. From that day forward, I became obsessed with squid. I was hell-bent on becoming a squid biologist, and now I am one! Squid and the rest of the cephalopods are a cool group of animals to study for many reasons. Still, the idea that gets me most excited about them is how long ago they diverged from us in evolutionary time. This group, the cephalopods, is 500 million years old. That’s older than trees. In other words, very old.
What are some life challenges cephalopods face? What’s unique about being a Hawaiian bobtail squid?
Cephalopods are the swimming protein bars of the ocean. They are super easy to eat because they don’t have bones or any hard stuff that makes them challenging to digest. The hardest part of them is their beak. So cephalopods are usually pretty good at camouflage. The Hawaiian bobtail squid’s approach is to camouflage itself at night. It uses bioluminescence from bacteria to hide in the open, among the downwelling moonlight.
How do you find, then catch a bobtail squid?
You wade in ankle- to hip-deep water and look for a “brightly colored ghost,” as one of our Atlas Obscura travelers once said. You use a small net to scoop them and then put them in a ziplock bag. After catching the squid, we bring them back to the lab and feed them dinner.
Can you tell me about your recent cross-country road trip? I heard you met a lot of animals.
I spent a few months on “The Squids Across America Tour,” where I talked about squid and science communication and had a lot of amazing moments, all involving animals. I was in the Everglades, where I caught lizards and saw a baby alligator. I went to a lab and saw a bunch of venomous snakes, and the girl I was staying with introduced me to her chameleon. I went to a lab in Mississippi and saw a lab that was culturing oysters and got to see a bunch of oyster babies. I went to a marine lab and saw baby crabs and went surveying sea turtles with a lab that has been studying turtles in that spot since the 1980s. But the best experience was kayaking in the springs of northern Florida near Gainesville, where I saw so many birds, turtles, spiders, and all kinds of animals immersed right there in the water with them.
If you could combine two animals to make a brand new super-animal, what would you make?
A squid and a bat, so it could fly out of the water, change color, and echo-locate!
Finally, can you leave us with three of your favorite squid facts?
Cephalopods have been on earth longer than trees!
Cuttlefish (which are related to squid) have 300 color-changing units per square inch that can change color instantaneously. Those cells are called chromatophores.
There is a squid called the strawberry squid. They look like strawberries. They have one really big eye for detecting animals above them, and a tiny eye that detects bioluminescent animals below them.
