Will Squid Soon Rule the Oceans?

After 500 Million Years, Cephalopods Are Thriving Amid Environmental Upheaval

The future is full of tentacles.

Even now, both giant and colossal squid writhe throughout the deep, while hooked and flying squid migrate from sea to sea in swirling swarms. Otherworldly glass squid and jewel squid proliferate in the open ocean. And market and common squid blanket shorelines with their egg capsules and their own dying bodies.

Then, of course, there are the octopuses: giant and pygmy, intertidal and abyssal, deadly and benign. All kinds of cuttlefish, too, from the tiny and toxic flamboyant to the edible pharaoh.

Over the coming years, we’re …