A Squid Dissection at the Florida Aquarium

Our homeschool group took a trip to The Florida Aquarium for a squid dissection!

It was very educational and fun! This was my dissection group…and we took a selfie with our squid! 😂

All photo credits (besides the selfie) go to my mom!

The first thing we did was rub the mantle (the top part) and watch it slightly change colors.

Here is my brothers group!

Next we had to flip it over and pull the digestive tract out. This was the grossest part!

There it is!

Next we cut down the mantle to open it up and see the inside. This is my friend from a different group doing this part.

The teacher was showing us the different parts inside the mantle.

My brother’s group was having a blast! 😂

The coolest part was the gills. When we removed them, we put them into the bowl of water. In the squid they looked like slimy goo, but when placed in the water they got all feathery!

The teacher helped us remove the pen and was showing us how to use it to write with the ink.

It was very hard to use, and we think we may have been writing with blood instead of the ink.

The pen/quill inside the squid is actually a piece of shell leftover from ancestors. There is a myth where sailors would remove the pen/quill and the ink pad and use it to write.

That’s it for the dissection! Afterward we got to explore the aquarium. I’ll share my photos from our exploration in the next post!

Have you ever dissected anything for science before?