Aug 31 2012

Friday Cephalopod: Superhero of the sea

Categories:

Cephalopods, Organisms

by PZ Myers

It’s wearing a cape!

(via Real Monstrosities)>

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25 comments

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1

Nathaniel Frein

31 August 2012 at 8:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And my first thought is Edna Mode saying “No capes!”
2

marcus

31 August 2012 at 8:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Cthulhu has returned11!!1one!!
3

René

31 August 2012 at 8:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s wearing a T-shirt. With text. Anybody fluent in Cephalopodese?
4

Ye Olde Blacksmith - Spocktopus cuddler

31 August 2012 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Behold! It came from the sky…erm…sea…. Whatever, just Behold!
5

Ogvorbis: broken

31 August 2012 at 8:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s wearing a T-shirt. With text. Anybody fluent in Cephalopodese?

The translation is in comment #2.
6

Cuttlefish

31 August 2012 at 8:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

- René@#3–

Yes, of course, naturally. It’s nothing that you vertebrates need worry about. Really. Honest. Trust me. Just go about your business as usual.

Hehehehe…
7

fredslocombe

31 August 2012 at 8:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Amazing evolutionary adaptation! We should keep our eyes open for more animals of the sea who disguise themselves by adapting their appearance to their surroundings consisting of our garbage. This animal looks like a fisherman from “Deadliest Catch” fell overboard.
8

Audley Z. Darkheart, the joke killer

31 August 2012 at 8:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Fred:

We should keep our eyes open for more animals of the sea who disguise themselves by adapting their appearance to their surroundings consisting of our garbage.

What? No.

First, our garbage hasn’t been around long enough to produce that kind of adaptation– do most population changes happen in under 100 years? And second, according to the link, she has no ink to squirt, so the “blanket” acts as a defense mechanism, making her look larger than she is. It’s hidden when the octopus isn’t in danger and unfurls when she’s threatened to scare off predators.
9

Larry

31 August 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Capes are cool. Its what all the fashionable sea creatures will be wearing this year.
10

blf

31 August 2012 at 9:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I didn’t know there was a ready supply of phoneboxes in the sea (needed to change into your cape).
11

TonyJ

31 August 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Wow! I gotta show this to my 7-year-old son.
12

bbgunn

31 August 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And my first thought is Edna Mode saying “No capes!”

That was incredibly amusing!
13

feedmybrain

31 August 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I love it! Especially the stinger trick.
Poor males though. Maybe this is the future for men that MRAs are worried about should the feminists’ plan to turn us into sperm factories comes to fruition
14

feedmybrain

31 August 2012 at 10:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

That was a terribly phrased sentence. I blame my boss walking around behind me…
15

hiho2go

31 August 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I will be renaming my niece’s ratty old baby blanket to the “Security Blanket of DOOM!” Maybe if she sees this photo she’ll let me sew an octopus head to it.
16

unclefrogy

31 August 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

My mind keeps wanting to make words, printing of the markings on the “cape” what language is it?

uncle frogy
17

Rando

31 August 2012 at 3:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Okay let’s get the original by John Williams ups here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vrfEoc8_g&feature=related
18

Tethys

31 August 2012 at 4:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

She is lovely, reminds me of the Diva Plavalaguna
in The Fifth Element.
19

a3kr0n

31 August 2012 at 4:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It rips off Man o’ War tentacles, and goes around whipping things with them? Awesome!
20

Amblebury

31 August 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Poetry in motion.
21

Jonquil of Mars

31 August 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lady GaGa’s designers really need to rethink the tiny blue cap.
22

Ragutis

1 September 2012 at 12:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Those things are so cool. Up there with the fish with the see-through head.

It’s probably been mentioned before (possibly even by me) but everyone here knows about bjornstar’s site, right? It’s not all invertebrates all the time, but he digs up some of the coolest (and weirdest) cephalopod related art, photos, tattoos and other stuff out there.

A couple of my recent favorites:

http://bjornstar.com/post/29761424139/alone-on-the-hill

http://bjornstar.com/post/29978431517/big-back

The Octo-labra is super cool too. There was a spiffy tentacled lamp a couple of weeks ago also.

It’s not TV Tropes, but don’t be surprised if you spend a while there going back through his posts.
23

WMDKitty (Always growing and learning)

1 September 2012 at 2:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s pretty!
24

aspidoscelis

1 September 2012 at 2:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Because I’m easily amused, I’ll point out that, once again, you’ve just pulled an uncredited image from somewhere else and put it here, still uncredited. OK, you mention that it’s pulled from Real Monstrosities… but they aren’t the source of the image and don’t mention anything about where it came from or who took it! So, where’s it from? Here:

http://uwpresse.com/SERVER/reportages/MARINE_LIFE/TREMOCTOPUS/ppages/ppage7.html

And a translation from translate.google.com of the associated text:

Filename: 007.jpg Tremoctopus
Legend: DISCOVERY OF A NEW SPECIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN NEVER photographed

TREMOCTOPUS GRACILIS
family Tremoctopodidae

This octopus deep-lives between 120 and 750 meters deep.
Tremoctopus are the champions of sexual dimorphism with a mass ratio of up to 1:40.000.

Here, a female photographed in the vicinity of the Mediterranean island of Ponza, Italy.
Distribution: Mediterranean Sea – Indian Ocean – Pacific Ocean
Photographer: Marcello Conticelli / UWPRESS.com

So, maybe you should stick a little “Marcello Conticelli / UWPRESS.com” under the image?
25

I'm_not

2 September 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Either there’s an evolutionary advantage for a squid to look like an Eastern orthodox Bishop at Easter, or, alternatively, the Bishops have chosen to look like this squid.