Friday Cephalopod: Origin of the Octosquid?


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Mastigoteuthis sp.

Since I recently pointed out the strange news reports of an “octosquid” that even went so far as to call it half squid/half octopus, I thought I’d show why the preliminary assignment to the genus Mastigoteuthis was suggestive. It probably did have 8 arms and 2 tentacles … before it got sucked up in a pipe and flung to the surface. Those two feeding tentacles are delicate.


Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Comments

  1. astromcnaught says

    If you had said they’d just discovered this on Titan, I’d have believed you…

  2. ctenotrish, FCD says

    Ashaman, I second Chuck C – what a hoot!!

    Careful folks – don’t be sippin’ your morning coffee if you pop over to read Ashaman’s link. Pretty damn funny.

  3. Peter Ashby says

    Interesting, I thought the original picture of the octosquid looked like two of the tentacles were thicker than the others but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just due to the angle they were being held. Now the example above definitely has two tentacles thicker than the others.