Comments

  1. David Marjanović, OM says

    Bah. Very nice presentation of an ancient hypothesis that is so vague it even contains paraphyletic groups. The thickness of the bubbles looks more like “relative dominance” than like any kind of count or inference.

    The ID version, though… LOL!

  2. David Marjanović, OM says

    Bah. Very nice presentation of an ancient hypothesis that is so vague it even contains paraphyletic groups. The thickness of the bubbles looks more like “relative dominance” than like any kind of count or inference.

    The ID version, though… LOL!

  3. Cthulhu says

    I was just a young babe when the IDiots made that diagram. Not as influential as I am now. The Ancient Ones and I have been very busy plotting our return. Feel free to make as many offerings as you can, because we need all the help we can get.
    Thanks again for your support!

  4. Billy says

    Is it just me, or do the population bubbles in the Nautiloidea section look like squid swimming with their tentacles close together?

    Interesting image. It actually seems rather simple compared to the phylogeny of, say, Aves and Dinosauria.

  5. zer0 says

    What’d the Nautilus say when he looked in the mirror?

    Hey, I can see my house from here…

  6. Ichthyic says

    It would be interesting to see where Dr Zoidberg fits in this scheme.

    Zoidberg, being a “mostly” crustacean (sheds shell periodically, claws, etc.) would likely be represented as merely a prey item in a food-web diagram, and certainly not in a systematic analysis of cephalopod evolution.

  7. HP says

    #2: Cthulhu comes from outer space. Also, he possesses some extradimensional qualities, so it’s not clear whether he actually has tentacles (also, batwings and human-like legs), or rather whether this horrifying chimera of octopus, man, and bat is an artifact of the human mind’s inability to correlate its contents (which, as we all know, is the most merciful thing).

    #6: Like Cthulhu, Dr. Zoidberg is from outer space. Unlike Cthulhu, though, he seems to come from an actual, physical extrasolar planet occupying standard space-time. Zoidberg of course possesses both arthropodoid (jointed exoskeleton) and cephalapodoid (feeding tentacles, ink) features, so his closest terrestrial analogue would have to be pre-Cambrian, and therefore well off the left-hand side of the chart.

  8. says

    Awesome. Now, one question, are their any out there for the weasel family? I’m thinking of a present to send to our friend Sal…

  9. Will Von Wizzlepig says

    The guys on that website were wanting a poster of that graphic- I think if you convert it to a vector image (try Inkscape, freeware vector editor), you can maybe make it a little bigger and get an OK poster out of it…

  10. BruceJ says

    To convert it to a poster, you can use the bitmap image there, coupled with this awesome site, called VectorMagic.

  11. David Marjanović, OM says

    Interesting image. It actually seems rather simple compared to the phylogeny of, say, Aves and Dinosauria.

    That’s just because cephalopod phylogeny is less well known, and because what is known is partly hidden in the paraphyletic groups in this figure.

  12. David Marjanović, OM says

    Interesting image. It actually seems rather simple compared to the phylogeny of, say, Aves and Dinosauria.

    That’s just because cephalopod phylogeny is less well known, and because what is known is partly hidden in the paraphyletic groups in this figure.

  13. says

    The ID chart is cute, but what really tickles me is that some people are interested enough in all those types of cephalopods to have discussion groups about them, I mean what kind of biogeeks have we here (each category with a working link, from http://www.tonmo.com/forums/):

    Cephalopod Species (By Family)
    This forum contains sub-forums grouped by cephalopod family for discussion of species.
    Sub-Forums: Alloposidae, Amphitretidae, Ancistrocheiridae, Architeuthidae, Bathyteuthidae, Batoteuthidae, Bolitaenidae, Brachioteuthidae, Chiroteuthidae, Chtenopterygidae, Cirroteuthidae, Cranchiidae, Cycloteuthidae, Enoploteuthidae, Gonatidae, Histioteuthidae, Idioctopodidae, Idiosepiidae, Joubiniteuthidae, Lepidoteuthidae, Loliginidae, Lycoteuthidae, Mastigoteuthidae, Nautilidae, Neoteuthidae, Octopodidae, Octopoteuthidae, Ocythoidae, Ommastrephidae, Onychoteuthidae, Opisthoteuthidae, Pholidoteuthidae, Promachoteuthidae, Psychroteuthidae, Pyroteuthidae, Sepiadariidae, Sepiidae, Sepiolidae, Spirulidae, Stauroteuthidae, Thysanoteuthidae, Tremoctopodidae, Vampyroteuthidae, Vitreledonellidae, Walvisteuthidae

  14. craig says

    Wait – there’s an ammonite news magazine? Why wasn’t I told?!?!

    Now I have to go downstairs and see if I can find that fossil ammonite I found (only one ever) in the creek not far from here.

    I’ve been waiting for the snow to melt so I can go back.

  15. says

    #23: the “Ammonite News Magazine” logo is just a parody of the TONMO “The Octopus News Magazine Online” logo, although we do yammer about ammonites and ammonite news quite a bit… it’s really “all things ceph and ceph-like” (since there’s some Cthulhu gibbering, and it’s not clear that he’s technically a cephalopod.) That said, cephalopod (past and present) enthusiasts are welcome at http://www.tonmo.com — in fact my secret agenda of more hypothetical biology on TONMO would welcome newcomers to this discussion of possible reasons for the absence of freshwater cephalopods

  16. says

    Stanton,

    Tommotia is NOT a cephalopod (wikipedia articles notwithstanding), but one of a number flat or dome-shaped early Cambrian animals with many different types of sclerites (shell elements) covering the body. The first elements of Tommotia named did resemble minute nautiloid shells, hence their old affiliation with them.

    David Marjanović is right on the money in pointing out how simplified this phylogeny is. The Nautiloidea portion of the figure, especially, hides a great deal of divergence and diversity as shown here. For a dinosaurian equivalent, consider a diagram that shows a blob for “non-coelurosaurian theropods”, with a branch coming out and a blob of “non-avian coelurosaurs”, and then a branch coming out with details of the divergences among birds.

    Nevertheless, a cool diagram!

  17. Phil Eyden says

    Wow! I am the author of the two diagrams and have just found out that you chaps have seen them and think they are worthy of commenting on! Those diagrams are a couple of years old now and I’d rather forgotten about them to be honest

    I just thought I would point out that the diagrams are over-simplified but that was deliberate as they were really designed for non-scientific people, such as myself, to understand with a splash of colour thrown in.

    Writing the ID version was great fun. Thanks again!