TODAY April 20! 🐙🦑

Hehe thank you

Don’t Be a Sucker: Sorting Fact from Fiction in Pop Culture Cephalopod Portrayals Pop culture is populated by plenty of fictional cephalopod and cephalopod-inspired characters, from Squidward of “SpongeBob SquarePants” to the heptapod aliens of Arrival. Whether these po...

Tomorrow April 20 at 6:45 pm ET, I'm giving a brand-new talk 🐙Don’t Be a Sucker: Sorting Fact from Fiction in Pop Culture Cephalopod Portrayals🐙
Come geek out with me about Doc Ock, Squidward, Marcellus, and a bunch of monsters and aliens! Register here:
smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/pr...

Promotional poster for How to Draw an Octopus at the SSF Libraries

Tomorrow I’ll be drawing octopuses at the South San Francisco Library with my friends @dannastaaf.bsky.social and @xjosuecruz.bsky.social ! Come join us at this free and fun event for all ages!

Ahhhhh I'm so excited that you're excited!!! Never any judgement for reading stuff whenever you get to it (as you can see I'm sometimes very slow to read replies 😅) Yes! I think the book will get a release date soon (right now it's just "next year") and then I will start sharing more about it!

The OctoPost: The Best Mermaid I've Ever Drawn (The mermaid’s at the end if you want to skip ahead.) Cephalopod News Do you, by any chance, like to argue? Scientists definitely do. They argue about which...

In addition to The Mermaid, my latest newsletter features a fossil that ISN'T an octopus and the touch-taste sense of a mating arm buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a...

I do feel it's worth noting that the identity of Pohlsepia was *always* uncertain; right from the beginning "octopus" was only one possibility and a lot of scientists were skeptical of it. It's so exciting that this is finally figured out!!

Photo of the coastal woods with a foggy view of the sea. A log swing hangs from a tree on a very long orange rope. It is so long that the branch where it is tied is out of view.

I also went for a walk and found a fantastic swing!

The wonderful @marlafrazee.bsky.social set us all doodling during her Q&A and suggested "If you're stuck, fool around with your signature." So now my name is a family with capital parents D and S and four lower-case children, including twins "an" and "na."

Photo of my visual notes, a list of words and (pictures): comedic timing (clock) multi-layered jokes (a stack of things) Callbacks (old fashioned phone) Running gags (runner) Hyperbole AND understatement (mountain, molehill, and mole) Repetition (series of blocks) Rule of the (three rings) Misdirection (faces looking away) There is also a duck paddling on water above the list. And an anemone in the corner below.

An excellent talk by Sophie Sheumaker laid out tactics for writing humor

Photo of a conference badge from the SCBWI Golden Gate Fest 2026. It has the conference theme "Finding Courage: Creating Through Resistance" and lovely conference art and my name and pronouns. It also has an ink doodle of an octopus.

I'm very much enjoying the @scbwisf.bsky.social conference today! I drew an octopus on my nametag, as is my wont

Absolutely ❣️

I hope you had lovely dreams! 😃

I need y'all to know that when I post art, I welcome questions like, "Respectfully, what is wrong with you?"

I don't know the answer, but I appreciate being asked. 😁

Oh I KNOW 😆

I'm so glad you like it, and congrats on the paper!

@dianateuthis.bsky.social I know you'll appreciate this 😁

A photograph of the anglerfish species Bufoceratias wedli from the Field Museum of Natural History imaged in vivid green and red. It looks upsettingly like a warped human head with thick red lips and small red teeth and a large chin. Its tiny tail sticks out of the back like a ponytail. CREDIT: Matthew Davis

A digital drawing of a vivid green and red merperson with a large head inspired by the photograph of the anglerfish. The pectoral fin of the anglerfish has become an ear; the tail of the anglerfish has become a ponytail. There are small red ear and nose piercings. The merperson appears happy, and sits in a tucked position reminiscent of a little old grandmother. The drawing is signed by the artist, Danna Staaf.

Got sent a press release for this awesome paper doi.org/10.1643/i202... by @anoplogaster.bsky.social and became instantly obsessed with the much-too-human face of the attached anglerfish photo (credit: Matthew Davis), so I had to give it a body

I'm so honored and excited to join this Draw-a-Thon with such a talented and creative group! I promise not to turn EVERY prompt into a cephalopod.

A poster promoting the Peninsula Libraries Small Press Comics Expo with a woman looking at a comic presented by an octopus behind a table.

Tomorrow I'll be at the Peninsula Library Small Press Comics Expo from 10-4. Admission at the South San Francisco Public Library is FREE and there are going to be a ton of local artists there. More info at comicartsfest.com

Practice with digital brushes from the open source program Krita. Each brush is used to write its own name and then doodle a cephalopod. Charcoal Pencil Medium: standard squid. Ink-3 Gpen: zooming cuttlefish. Chalk Grainy: baby squid. Basic-5 Size: tangled octopus. Bristles-2 Flat Rought: another baby squid. Texture Hair: bobtail squid.

I'm having fun riding up the digital art learning curve! These are default brushes in the open-source program Krita.

A block of text that says "Scientists at the University of Miami are carrying out a research study on trends in the field of science communication. For this survey we are defining science communication as work that is done: • by a technical subject area expert in some field related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, • outside of classroom settings • aimed at the public If you are 18 years of age or older and work or recently worked in this field (full-time, part-time, or as a side project), please click the link below to complete a short survey. If you are interested in learning more about this research study, please e-mail us at Julia.wester@miami.edu. In the body of your email please provide your full name, and if you would prefer to be contacted by phone, your phone number and the best time to reach you. Contacting us for more information does not commit you to participating, and should you decide to participate you may terminate your participation at any time."

Attention Science Communicators!

We are conducting a survey on the landscape of science communication & need your help gathering experiences.

Please send this to #SciComm ppl you know. We want to get as thorough a sense of the state of the field as we can.

umiami.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

I was trying to think of an equivalent for scuba fins and I said "roller skates?" and my partner said "skateboard" and I was like YOU ARE CORRECT

I'm so glad, it was such a good prompt

Ink on paper drawing of a green cuttlefish riding a skateboard and wearing a SCABA (self-contained abovewater breathing apparatus) tank. It's a rebreather, with one hose bringing oxygenated water into the mantle and another hose at the siphon taking water away to have more oxygen added. The cuttlefish is also wearing a mask to keep water over its eyes so it can see better on land.

fiiiinally catching up with the last few birthday doodle requests; this one came from @invertebabe.bsky.social on insta: "cephalopod with a scuba suit ready to take over land"

It IS!! incredible memory

😂🤣

More than 200! It's unsettling!

Photo of the artist's workspace. An XP-Pen tablet sits on a wooden table with the art program Krita open. The visible part of the file contains a few guidelines and, in large friendly text, the words "Help I'm full of bones"

Just a perfectly normal evening over here. How are you?

The OctoPost: New Octopus Species, Illegal Nautilus Trade, Baby Glass Squid, and Birthday Doodles Last month’s issue was simply titled “The Octopost: ”, with the space after the colon unintentionally left blank. This month I may have overcompensated....

The latest OctoPost features octopus, nautilus, and squid as well as mystery, sorrow, and beauty. Also some silly drawings. buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a...