Hawaiʻi field work, January 2026

Most of my work on the Hawaiian bobtail squid happens in simulation. In January 2026 I was on Oʻahu for squid collecting and met the animals in person. We worked out of the University of Hawaiʻi’s Kewalo Marine Laboratory in Honolulu and collected at Paikō.

Squidding at Paikō

Bobtail squid spend the day buried in sand and come out to hunt after dark, so squidding is night work: wading the shallows by headlamp, looking for an animal a few centimeters long.

A person standing shin-deep in dark water at night, lit by a headlamp, looking down at something in their hands — Squidding in the shallows at Paikō.

Shallow water over a pale sandy bottom lit by a headlamp at night, with a line of city lights on the horizon — The view from the water: sand under the headlamp and lights across the bay.

Back at the lab

At Kewalo the squid went into seawater tanks with a sand bottom, where they dig in and coat themselves with sand grains.

A small brown-speckled bobtail squid seen from above in a clear dish — A Hawaiian bobtail squid, *Euprymna scolopes*.

Squid in their sand coats in a holding tank (28 s, no sound).

Not everything on the bench was a squid.

A grey shaker bottle of seawater on a lab bench with 'Shrimp Jail' written on it in blue marker — Field equipment: the Shrimp Jail.

A small dark green sea slug with a blue-edged frill on the wall of a glass dish — A sea slug in a glass dish.

An orange sea slug covered in finger-like projections, photographed through a microscope eyepiece — Another, down the microscope.

By day

Night collecting leaves the days for the rest of the island.

Panorama from a crater rim at dawn: a green crater floor below, the city under heavy cloud to the left and an orange sky over the coast to the right, with walkers on the summit trail — Sunrise from the summit of Lēʻahi (Diamond Head).

Green ridges and valleys seen from a plane window under scattered clouds, with the wing at the top of the frame — Oʻahu from the plane on the way in.

Lēʻahi from the south shore.

Black lava-rock breakwater, turquoise water and sailboat masts under a clear blue sky — A harbor on the Honolulu waterfront.

A wide sandy beach with turquoise surf, a small island offshore and steep dark cliffs to the right — The windward coast, with Mānana (Rabbit Island) offshore.

And the food

A wooden tray of Hawaiian dishes in small bowls around a leaf-wrapped laulau, with poi, shredded pork, lomi salmon, purple sweet potato and a square of haupia — A Hawaiian plate at Highway Inn in Kakaʻako: laulau, kālua pig, poi and lomi salmon.

A takeaway box of fried chicken, fried tofu and white rice — Plate lunch: fried chicken, tofu and rice.

A takeaway box with two kinds of cubed raw fish poke either side of a mound of white rice — Poke and rice.

The modeling side of this work, on how the squid’s breathing carries bacteria to its light organ and what heat stress does to that, is on the squid project page.