Jean Baptiste Vérany was a man who truly appreciated the beauty of cephalopods. He created a book of chromatolithographs of Mediterranean octopuses in 1851, containing art that is now in the public domain. Go browse!
A kaiju was observed off the coast of Japan — a giant squid just idling offshore (no mass destruction occurred).
It looks like a distressed, lethargic animal, so even if it felt like rampaging I don’t think it could do it. Poor beast.
She shot some quick video of our local Monarch butterflies clustering on a tree branch.
Now I ask you: what would you prefer to see, videos of butterflies or videos of spiders? Be honest now.
Honk, honk.
I do spare a glance for other cruel killers too, you know. We’ve got one of these Cooper’s hawks living in my neighborhood, and I heard them making that high-pitched cry a few times already this morning.
Mary caught a centipede in the house, and I was going to take a quick picture of it…but it was way too active. So I had the bright idea of bringing it to the lab, and just carry it outside as I walked in. I had it in a large plastic container that I figured would provide some thermal insulation.
It was not enough.
Before I reached the end of the driveway, it was immobile — that was less than a minute. It took another 3 or 4 minutes to get to work, and it looked dead and frozen. I took a picture anyway. This is a sad, corpselike centipede. Whoops. I was pretty sure I’d killed it with surprising speed. I guess -20°C isn’t healthy for small invertebrates.
You might be tempted to stare deeply into this image, trying to puzzle out what it is you’re looking at, but that’s how they get you.
That’s Haliphron, the 7-armed octopus, holding a jellyfish it’s been nibbling on. Now that I’ve told you, I hope that has broken the spell, and you’ll be able to escape. If not, well, a cephalopod has got to eat, and it’s next victim will by baffled by the way those twisting arms surround your face.
It’s a barbaric practice, I know, but it does successfully draw in carnivorous dinosaurs of a large size.
If you’re just sitting around, digesting rubbery muffins like I am, may I recommend the Namib Desert cam? Right now there’s a herd of oryx hanging around the waterhole.
Awww, so cute.
