AN ANATOMICAL MISCELLANY
A ram’s horn squid’s shell
THOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE A LOOSELY coiled snail shell, this is more akin to the cuttlefish ‘bones’ enjoyed by pet budgies. It’s the internal buoyancy organ of a ram’s horn squid, a deepsea cephalopod that was observed alive in the wild for the first time only in 2020. The species is largely tropical, but the horns’ buoyancy means they do occasionally turn up on UK beaches.
Stuart Blackman