Features

‘It should be Cephalopod Week’: 56 questions with Heather Judkins

By JOHN TIPTON / USF Advancement

WITH A MIND AS AGILE as the creatures she studies, Heather Judkins, PhD ’09, dives deep during our 56-question interview. An associate professor of integrative biology at USF St. Petersburg, Judkins is a marine biologist and an expert in cephalopods — octopus, squid and other sea creatures with big heads and tentacle-bejeweled arms. In 2019, she made headlines and history as part of a research team that caught a giant squid on camera in U.S. waters for the first time. It was in her back yard — the Gulf of Mexico.

Move over, “Shark Week,” it’s time to shine a light on cephalopods.

Here’s an edited excerpt, or you can fully immerse yourself in the full video.

Q: What’s the most surprising new species you’ve discovered?
Judkins: The most surprising was this deep sea squid, Bathyteuthis, a deep maroon squid. We thought we had one new species, but we found out we had three new species.

Q: What do you find most challenging during an expedition?
Judkins: We go out to sea for a couple of weeks at a time. Weather is obviously a challenge. We sometimes have to skirt around storms and hurricanes.

Q: What’s the most fascinating thing you’ve seen in the deep?
Judkins: We have lots of really cool biodiversity. We collect fishes, jellyfish, squids, octopus, crustaceans, and we’re looking at the biodiversity. Who’s found in the water column? Where? What are they eating? Are there contaminants impacting these groups?

Q: What do you hope to change while studying biodiversity in the Gulf?
Judkins: We’ve been doing this project since the BP oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexicoin 2010. We’re hoping our work is going to better inform what goes on the next time an oil spill occurs.

Q: What’s the best way people can help the ocean?
Judkins: There is a lot of evidence that what we’re doing on land is actually translating to what goes on in the ocean. Anything that could be done to reduce pollution, reduce plastics, reduce trash going into landfills.

Q: What is one thing you experienced recently that you found motivating?
Judkins: I got the chance to see Jane Goodall. This woman is 89 years old and she stood there and talked to us for two hours about her work. I looked at my friend and I was like, ‘I hope when I’m 89 my passion is still so great.’

Q: Advice for aspiring marine scientists?
Judkins: Whether they are a third-grader, a high-schooler, an undergraduate, I would tell them to get out and explore. Volunteer or intern somewhere. The broader their experiences, the better they’ll be able to hone in on what they’re truly passionate about.

Q: Tell us about your first experience examining a squid.
Judkins: It was actually an octopus, which are notoriously difficult to identify. Mike Vecchione, my co-advisor, is sitting over my shoulder. I’m looking at this key and I cannot identify this octopus. I’m like, ‘What the heck? Who wrote the key?’ And Mike says very casually behind me, ‘I wrote this whole book.’ So that was embarrassing. He was very cool and casual about it like, ‘Yep. They’re really difficult to identify.’

Q: How many octopus and squid have you examined?
Judkins: It’s literally 20,000ish. I have about 13,000 cephalopods I have studied as part of my work with the DEEPEND Consortium.

Q: This or that. Would you rather live in the past or the future?
Judkins: I am going say live in the past.

Q: Who would you want to meet in the past?
Judkins: Historical oceanography folks. Ones that built the first collection bottles, who discovered the deep sea first.

Q: Capt. Nemo or Capt. Jack Sparrow?
Judkins: I’m going Capt. Jack Sparrow.

Q: Summer or winter?
Judkins: Neither in Florida. Fall in New England.

Q: Between the book and the movie, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”?
Judkins: The book. Of course.

Q. First thing that comes to mind. Your favorite book?
Judkins: “Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway.

Q: “Shark Week”?
Judkins: I think it should be “Cephalopod Week.”

Q: While at sea, what’s your go-to snack?
Judkins: A granola bar. We have to get up at really weird times, so at 2 a.m. a granola bar usually hits the spot. With a Diet Coke.

Q: Favorite childhood toy?
Judkins: My bike. You could go explore anywhere.

Q: Childhood celebrity crush?
Judkins: Andre Agassi.

Q: All-time favorite movie?
Judkins: “Space Balls.” In honor of my brother. It’s our favorite movie.

Q: Favorite deep-sea creature?
Judkins: The giant squid. Let’s go for obvious.

Q: When you’re on a research cruise, what do you do to kill time?
Judkins: We sleep! Our shifts are six hours on, six hours off for two weeks. So when the nets go down, I am taking a nap.

Q: What’s your favorite movie in which there’s a boat involved?
Judkins: “Jaws.”

Q: What is the most random sea life fact you know?
Judkins: An adult parrotfish poops one ton of sand per year.

Q: If you could be any sea creature, what would you be?
Judkins: A tuna, because I can go in deep and shallow water and I can cross oceans.

Q: What’s one thing you do daily that makes you happy?
Judkins: Come to work at USF St. Pete.

Q: What did you want to be growing up?
Judkins: A marine biologist. I thought I was going to work with Jacques Cousteau.

Q: Do you eat seafood yourself?
Judkins: I do eat seafood.

Q: What’s your favorite seafood dish?
Judkins: It might be calamari actually, which is squid. As long as it’s cooked properly, it’s delicious.