I’d better go home and put on my “Welcome Squid Overlords” t-shirt—someone has caught an octopus…in the Ohio River.
Unfortunately, this is almost certainly a case of some bastard bringing a cephalopod home, allowing it to die, and throwing it out like a piece of garbage. When the cephalopod overlords do show up, I hope they take care of him/her first.
Are you sure this is not a messenger from the Flying Spaghetti Monster? They do look similar, ya’ know..
PZ, how long would an octopus live in fresh water, hours or days?
I’m hoping they’ll save him for last, myself.
I don’t know. I’d guess on the order of hours, though. I doubt that they can cope with that kind of change in the osmotic environment.
I’d also guess that it would be an ugly and painful way to die, like making a human being drink seawater in volume.
Crustaceans join the invasion
The revolt spreads:
Sturgeon attacks jet-skier
Marlin spears angler
I’m with RavenT – I myself am hoping to be among the first to be eaten (hail Cthulhu).
I’d also guess that it would be an ugly and painful way to die, like making a human being drink seawater in volume.
I agree, terrible way for a beautiful animal to die. I thought the timeframe would show how recently the octopus was dumped by the owner. I’ve understood how anyone could do something like this to any animal they owned as a pet.
Meant to say “never understood” how anyone…….
From the sturgeon article:
“the fish can jump as high as 8 feet in the air…”
Really? Remarkable, if true. I rather doubt it.
No self respecting bastard would treat an octopus thus. Bastards share the distinction with ammonites that we shall never be allowed into an association of The Lord (even unto the tenth generation: I’m damned by an order of magnitude. How good is that? So we would never treat our fellow hell-dwellers with such disrepect. Your criminal’s parents were probably married. In a Christian Church.
Oh, it’s all true*, Evan. Not only can sturgeons manage an impressive 8-foot vertical leap, they have extraordinary ball-handling capabilities, and their sleek scales make them almost impossible to guard effectively.
In 1967, the ABA’s Minnesota Muskies drafted an eleven-foot “tall” Acipenser rubicundus out of Thunder Bay, who, in a 1968 all-star game against the NBA, scored an astounding 26 points off of Lew Alcindor. This led to the rule change excluding teleosts from regular league play, and, some say, to the demise of the ABA itself.
* May not be true.
Oh, poor octopus. :-(
At least it’s not a damned carp. Being beaned in the head by one of those would be an entirely ignoble way to die.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/fishfly.asp
(with video!)
Octopus mystery is solved – Student says he put it in river after film project.
Since the student got the octopus from a seafood shop, is anything any different? The “poor octopus” was poor when suspected abused, but how about now that we know it was killed and sold for meat?
Just being a DA.