Megaleledone setebos
(from Strugnell, JM, Rogers AD, Prodo PA, Collins MA, Allcock AL (2008) The thermohaline expressway: the Southern Ocean as a centre of
origin for deep-sea octopuses. Cladistics 24:1-8)
Friday Cephalopod: Antarctic cutie
Megaleledone setebos
Wow! Amazing! How big are these species by the way, does anyone know?
No, I don’t think anyone does know. All we can do right now is speculate, and your guess is as good as mine. 15 meters long? 20?
Aww! Oo’s a cute widdle Cthulhu den! Yes you are!
All the Friday Cephalopods on Pharyngula remind me of my first courses in biology at the Göteborg University (Gothenburg, Sweden). Since Gothenburg is situated by the North Sea and an important fishery hub, all dissections we did were on sea creatures. It took me an additional week after the Biology A course ended, until my hands stopped smelling of all the fish I had gutted. I guess it was about then that I realized I preferred botany :)
Cute Cephalopod though.
I never would have found an octopus so adorable before I discovered this site.
Erdrick: Are you serious when you guess at 15 or 20 metres long? That’s amazing.
Does anyone know if there are freshwater cephalopods?
Why do you insist on making me wish that there be such a thing as reïncarnation?
(Do cephalopods even have carne?
now i wants a tentacly hug
Good grief – it’s actually posing!
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/censusofmarinelife2008/7
“Erdrick: Are you serious when you guess at 15 or 20 metres long? That’s amazing.”
Er, I’m pretty sure he’s not.
OMG SO CUTE. I want one!!!
“This one is a juvenile; adults can be nearly 1 metre long.”
Well then…..I guess that’s still pretty cool…….
Me lacking the finer arts of biologism, it is just a Squid, right?
http://www.ectomo.com/index.php/category/science/
Eight years into it, fascinating new discoveries have been made, one of which focuses on this little fellow, Megaleledone setebos, which lives in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica and can grow up to one meter in length.
Many other strange beasts also lurk in the Southern Ocean. As Lovecraft has often written.
Huh. Our presence is really being felt even in the ocean depths. This creature has clearly been selected for a Disney-degree of cuteness.
I see a bleak future for us. Bleak and cute and horrific and adorable.
What have we wrought?
fawkes @ #13: I believe it is a juvenile octopus, not a squid. Squid are more streamlined, and have a fifth pair of limbs and a pair of “wings” (technical term, anyone? it’s eluding me right now) on their mantles.
So is ‘octopus’ the family name, or is squids & octopuses part of a family to which name I am ignorant?
Awwww, that IS cute!
I believe it’s an octopus, Guy Fawkes.
Oops. I see I’m not the first to answer that. I think octopodes and squid are cephalopods.
cepa…. cepepgal… cephalopods… why are the names so hard, why cant they speak english like we do in america…..
(that was a joke makin fun of americans that 1. only know one languge. 2. think that ‘america’ is a country. No insult intended).
I’m sorry, that is way too cute to be our Overlord.
Does it at least have a thirst for human blood?
Hahaha. Cephalopod refers to the animal having its feet attached to its head. Cephalo(head)-Poda(feet). It’s Greek, so my translation may not be perfect. Of course, this is what cephalopods look like to you and me, but whether it is correct from an anatomical viewpoint, you’ll have to ask someone who actually knows anything about cephalopods.
Guy
Don’t be a hater.(American slang that you probably wouldn’t get)
Sure, it’s easy to pick on Americans. We’re too fat to get up and defend ourselves.
I’d attack you with my words, but I have the unfortunate luck of having been educated here as well.
Damn our public schools!!
What’s on TV?
I want it! My son would say it looks like a Pokemon.
Screw it, we give it a real name. Lets say, oh I dont know. BOB? Easy to pronounce, not hard to spell… Yeah, Bob it is.
ggab, you would attack me by words but your educated didn’t supply you with enough? :)
How does ‘hater’ work as a slang then? I heard the expression but it was related to its meaning, so is there another use you need to be a street hoodie to know?
Guy Fawkes,
Ignorant not only with respect to the family name, I guess. Your basic reading skills also seem to need improvement (hint: These postings are titled “Friday Cephalopod“).
You’re Swedish, right? Well, bläckfiskar doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue for us Americans, yet I don’t see anyone making fun of you.
Could have fooled me.
What makes you think Americans only know one language? And America, as all native speakers of English and a good many other languages agree, is an informal, but perfectly acceptable way of referring to the United States of America.
As gabb says, don’t be a hater.
Curleeeeeee!
I like Bob! Although I think that particular octopus is too cute for Bob. I think it should be Winnie. Like Winnie the Pooh, only the marine version.
Gregory Earl, no America is the name of the continent(s) that the Country of United States is in.
Is it generally only ignorant people that say ‘America’ refering to United States. All educated americans I met usually make fun of their countrymen sayin ‘America’ wondering which part of it, Argentina or Canada they mean….
You have North and South America, These are two contintents. In North America you got Canada (Second biggest country in the world), United States and Mexico.
Maybe you should travel a wee bit, and possible open an Atlas once or twice, could be helpful.
How about Swimmie the Pooh? Definitely high on the cute scale.
Swimmie! That’s awesome! “I shall name you Swimmie, and you shall be my Swimmie” “Ouch! Bad Swimmie!” (See? It even works in Dory land).
Just a Swimmie, Just a Swimmie, Swimmie, Swimmie, Swimmie, Swimmie…
I must go to bed now. I’m not thinking straight.
Guy
I thought your post was funny.
Then again, i don’t recall any joke that ever really offended me.
I was even awarded best joke at my grandfather’s funeral.
It’s how my family deals with stress.
Keep’em coming.
It’s curly!
That is at least debatable. In most geographical traditions, there is no continent called “America” — there are two continents (North America and South America) that are sometimes collectively referred to as “The Americas“. So there is no potential for confusion.
Says the man who can’t be bothered to find out what “cephalopod” in the title of this post might refer to…
As an American living in Europe, I can only imagine that they are trying to signal humility so as not to be victims of the anti-Americanism that even educated Europeans consider perfectly acceptable.
See, so you do know that there is no continent called “America”. But that’s beside the point anyway. As I said, everyone knows that “America” is an informal way of referring to the United States of America, which makes sense, given that they are called the “United States of America.
Maybe you should stop making unwarranted assumptions.
Is this a shot of a living creature or has it been swimming in a preservative? It looks contracted to me.
Gregory Earl: Lighten up.
i seem to be unable to post without blockquote failures lately, and this one was severely mangled, so one more time (this time with preview):
Winnie the Glurg? Winnie the Gurgle? Winnie the Blub? What is the word for the sound of blowing bubbles underwater…?
As for the “America” debate: there’s no clear way to answer that one. the country is usually referred to as “the U.S.”, in rarer cases as “America”. the inhabitants are “Americans” but most South Americans consider themselves “Americans”, too. And calling the country “the United States” is also only meaningful by consensus, since Mexico is actually “The United States of Mexico”
It’s too confusing and ambiguous to start a stupid argument over.
That one is a real cutie — this one, not so much:
Alien-like Squid With “Elbows” Filmed at Drilling Site
This short video is truly spectacular — and creepy.
I never thought I’d be saying this, but that octopus really is cute.
Adorable, actually.
Well boop boo and boobity boo! It’s a Betty Boop o pod! Never thought I’d ever get to see one.
Thanks, PZ!
What a wonderful animal, much wiser than the christian god-idea.
People that live in the United States are also Americans but only as they are a subset of all other Americans in Canada, Mexico and, South America. As are people that live in the countries in Europe, Europeans.
Speaking of Americans as only those living within US is bushed.
Suck it jesus christ!
I think I’m in the same boat with Nekohime and others. Adorable and I wish that I had one. However, I think that I’ll settle for a rubbery facsimile as I would probably not be able to care for it.
all together now:
aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!
It took me an additional week after the Biology A course ended, until my hands stopped smelling of all the fish I had gutted