Time Mag: ‘Squid Are Among the Most Intelligent Ocean Creatures. Climate Change Might Shrink Their Brains’ – ‘The squid brain is in danger’
By Marc Morano
July 11, 2026
8:35 am
https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/climate-change-shrink-squid-brain-study/By Jeffrey Kluger
Excerpt: According to a new study presented at the Society for Environmental Biology conference in Florence, Italy, in early July, as levels of oceanic carbon dioxide grow greater, the brain of at least one species of squid is growing smaller.
High CO2 levels were already known to affect squid behavior—and, by extension, the state of their brains. According to a January 2026 paper in Communications Biology, seven days of exposure to increased carbon dioxide resulted in a 65% reduction in hunting behavior in adult squid. Newly hatched squid exposed to high CO2 for the first 90 days of their lives hunted 42% less.
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The brain volume of the squid in the elevated-carbon dioxide tank was 49% smaller than that of the group in the tank with current CO2 levels. No area of the brain was spared from the shrinkage, but the change was especially pronounced in the optic lobes and the optic tract—the bundles of nerves that carry visual signals to the brain—with reductions of 52% and 62% respectively.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2026/07/11/time-mag-squid-are-among-the-most-intelligent-ocean-creatures-climate-change-might-shrink-their-brains-the-squid-brain-is-in-danger/
