Pen and Ink

Evelyn and Clementine dissected squid yesterday. Evelyn surprised me by saying she did not want to do it. She is prone to getting queasy. And she felt sorry for the squid. She loves fried calamari, but this was different. I said that they would probably feed the squid to some of the animals in the bio lab.

When I did Bio 1A our dissected corpses went to the Lindsey Wildlife Museum. The owls have to eat anyway, might as well have students dissect the rats first. I didn't tell the kids about the centerpiece of the dissection: a pregnant female with her V-shaped uterus with little rat fetuses lined up inside like sausage links.

I got queasy sometimes, so I put my head down for a few minutes and then went on. The attraction outweighed the repulsion.

For Evelyn, too. She ended up annoyed that the other two girls in her group wanted to dissect, too. Clementine said, "I was so lucky, the two girls in my group said Ewww! Gross! and wouldn't touch it."

The two highlights were the ink sac, and the "pen" (at right). It is made of chitin, like sea shells, and is all that remains of the squid's ancestors' shell.


They loved writing their names in squid ink.