Tragic news from Portugal: thousands of dead octopuses are washing up on the beaches. Not only is it sad news for the cephalopods, but it tells us that something unpleasant is going on out there in the sea. Unfortunately, no one knows what just yet.
Oh, the octopodity!
Obviously a sign from Cthulhu
Obviously the Cthulhian calendar ended in 2009.
The fools! They just dismissed it as superstitious folly…
This sort of thing break my heart… absolutely tragic. These poor octopuses probably died a needless death. I hope scientists can find out what’s brewing in our oceans soon…
My first thought was “Jonestown!”
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/01/evidence-of-religion-in-octopuses.html
Brilliant poem, Cuttlefish! I loved it. :)
They tried to follow the dolphins. Alas, they’re not as intelligent.
:-(
In seriousness… it’s odd that it’s just cephalopods being affected and not other types of marine life… are there known cases of mass octopus death like this in the past?
I’ve seen red tides off the coasts of Maine and NH kill thousands of fish, but it’s not that selective.
My first thought was some sort of mass spawning/dying orgy. Is that possible?
Obviously they’re teen octopus suicides due to a predatory “love em and leave em” policy causing widespread heartbreak…I wonder who could be behind it.
It’s all those Catholics praying for God to smite you, PZ. He missed again.
If I might get you an update straight from the Portuguese news:
http://jn.sapo.pt/paginainicial/pais/concelho.aspx?Distrito=Porto&Concelho=Vila%20Nova%20de%20Gaia&Option=Interior&content_id=1461786
“The Octopus are Already in the cooking pot”
The probable cause of death was determined as being trash and wastes from the Douro river by the local fishermen due to the sand residue left across the beaches, and as such most of them have already grabbed and cooked most of them. Apparently there are local person who have around 30 to 40 kilos in their freezers already.
If I might paraphrase from the article:
“This slight atmospheric dust settled in the bottom of the ocean, where the octopus roam, and entered their heads where they have their vital organs. When we touch them on their heads, they rise the tentacles to get rid of what’s bothering them, and they did the same to get rid of the dust. So they let all go and stayed adrift in the sea, ending up dead.” – said a 65 year old fishermen, then adding:
“Don’t tell me the scientist don’t know that.We fishermen of Aguda, in our life have seen that at least three times, and it’s always in association with flood sin the Douro.”
Sometimes I end up really proud of my country for the strangest news. :P
As someone who is phobic about the creatures (but braves them daily to read your blog!) I can’t say I’m too upset… but very glad I’m not currently in Portugal
Wait… what?
Oh wait. I hadn’t quite finished reading the article. Apparently the biologists in the ELA are still doing analysis and there are no traces of such a residue. Besides the fact that the floods are annual(although this year we had greater floods, I don’t live in Vila Nova de Gaia, so I don’t know if the Douro river was affected more or less than usual). The concrete analysis results should only get back from the Veterinary labs in 7 days.
Oh, and the found octopus are of all sizes and stages of life, this at least narrows down the hypothesis.
@14
I translated it the best I could, believe em, the original version didn’t make much sense either. From what I can understand, any irritation in the head area makes the octopus stop swimming and using his arms to get rid of it, like scratching an itch. It seems that they just let themselves drift and die while doing such a thing.
How come none of the English-language news sources are picking up on the human foot that washed up with the octopuses. story in Portuguese.
Maybe I’m being speciesist, but it seems kind of an interesting factor.
@16
Reading the original, the quote from that fisherman sounds like a bit of local folk wisdom, very much like some of the explanations one hears from fishermen in coastal cities here in Brazil. All the way across the pond, different culture and traditions, but the guesses are always based on some bit of their experience.
One of the comments to that article was great: (quick translation for everyone who doesn´t read portuguese)
“Toxicological analysis?! Give it a good wash and eat it! I´m already making room in my freezer: today it´s octopus, tomorrow it´s cod!” (The article mentioned that a few of the fishers have already eaten some of the octopus and felt no fear)
Hey, when life hands you mostly fresh octopus… you save some for the whole year!
@ Rev.BDC: Cthulu–good one./:-)
I love H.P.–even though he’s panned terribly by most “serious” readers/writers…I enjoy him immensially.
Perhaps one reason (I have others, as well) is because I like to think that I grew up in the kind of New England he’s so good at bringing to life. He had a gift for instilling in me a nostalgia for a place that mightn’t have ever existed (but very nearly did/does), whilst at the same time filling me with an impending feeling of dread regarding those very same places.
Arkham, my home town.
Naked Bunny@11: Or a plague sent to punish Portugal because gay marriage is going through parliament atm.
Scene from the new movie “Balugas that stare at Starfish”….
JC
@mattheath: That would certainly fit Yahweh’s style.
Why is everyone saying “octopuses”? Is this American slang? Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of ancient Greek knows its “octopodes”. Or if served with olive oil and smoked paprika, its “pulpo a la Gallega”.
They know the stars are *nearly* right…. they’re just gettin’ the hell outta Dodge before the Shrimp hits the fan.
:D
@burpy: 1) Surely what anyone with even a cursory knowledge of ancient Greek knows is that it’s “ὀκτώποδες”.
2) We are speaking English; the regular “es” plural is the accepted norm in both British and American dialects.
3) “it’s” not “its”.
4) No self-respecting language pedant calls a Gallician dish by a Castillian name.
“No one”?
Yeah, right. We certainly don’t know anyone with an underwater lair and an unhealthy obsession with these critters. No, sir, no sirree Bob.
Also, HUMAN FOOT!!! Am I really the only one that things that’s worth mentioning?
I was going to suggest the wavepower generators as culprits but I see that they were removed last year (and if it’s a recurring phenomenon then that would argue against blaming them anyway).
@me “thinks” not “things”
No. “Octopodes” means eight feet. We do not wish to say “Hey, look at the eight feet on the beach,” we want to say “Hey, look at the eight-footed animals on the beach.” Therefore “octopuses” is correct.
@mattheath “”it’s” not “its””.
Damn!
“No self-respecting language pedant calls a Gallician dish by a Castillian name”.
Well I live in Andalucia, and that´s what they call it here (although I was born in Galicia, so please don´t tell my mum). And oh..oh..oh.. I just noticed you spelled it “Gallician”, so ha!
Human foot, human shmoot – it is 3 limbs (digits?? pedits??) short. or is that 6?
JC
Um… I meant “or is that 5” – not 6… but ..er.. maybe regarding post #30, it should be UNIpodes?
I’ll get me coat…
JC
Please, won’t someone think of the squids!
(Okay, I know it’s lame. Chalk it up to giddiness at being able to post. Wheee!)
@burpy: damn Mupry’s law ;)
I live by the sea in South West Wales. I have often seen cuttlefish ‘bones’ washed up along the strand line, but a frw weeks ago for the first time in my 60 years I saw intact cuttlefish corpses. Not many – one in perfect condition, and a couple more that it looked as if the gulls had had a go at them.
But it was the first time ever.
Last summer there was an unprecedented glut of edible crabs washed up dead, too – I saw them while prawning. There was the worst prawn crop in my memory.
WTF going on?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the pig farms upstream weren’t guilty of dumping swine waste into the river; it wouldn’t be the first time.
I imagine such waste could easily kill all those octopi.
Call up Debbie “Deborah” Gibson and Lorenzo “Lameass” Lamas. MEGASHARK IS BACK!
…the first wave of the invasion didn’t go quite as planned, is my guess.
I don`t suppose someone or two fisherpersons has caught over their quota and just dumped the excess?
Why no fish or other organisms? Is it just one species of octopus or several? If one, is it part of its life cycle?
I think Crewvy (40) may have a better explanation. And the fishermen probably know it.
Regards,
Katkinkate.
I hope it’s not pollution, but that’s kind of a thin gruel hope.
We dump so much crap in the ocean and then wonder when stuff like this happens.
I really wish humans would get that the oceans are where the majority of active life is on this planet, some of it arguably intelligent in some fashion or another (cetaceans, cephalopods, a few others), and all of it pretty amazing and cool. And I say that having been stung by coral and having had a few other run-ins with some damn scary tropical sea creatures.
@40
Considering there were various small specimens consisting with the first stages of life, which are usually not collected by fisherman, that seems very unlikely. This was noted in some of the articles as well.
In the last few years it has become rather common for the media to announce yet another human foot found on some beach around here (Pacific Northwest).
Best guess, it’s the running shoes. The feet have separated from the body during decomposition because of the buoyancy of the shoe.
One might speculate that the cold ocean waters around here do not allow gasses to accumulate enough to float the whole body so that everything could wash ashore in one piece.
Where’s a CSI writer when you need one?
Some news sources are now talking about a disease caused by a virus or bacteria as the most likely cause, and people are being warned NOT to eat the octopuses (Obviously. I can’t believe some people actually thought it would be a good idea to eat them without knowing the cause of death, but that’s just me…)
That sounds like pluralizing the feet (“podes”) rather than the entire critter. So instead of “Imagine an 8-foot thing and then imagine many such 8-footed things.” it comes out seeming more like “Imagine a thing with 8 things, each one of which has many feet.”
That might not be correct interpretation of the greek, but that’s how that sort of combination of base terms and suffixes and prefixes ends up seeming in English, which is probably why we tend not to use that word.
#39
Exactly my thoughts. Clearly, the second wave will have little water-rebreathers on, a la the Hath from Doctor Who..
@ #39 & #47–
Merely lulling humankind into a false sense of security, I assure you…
have I said too much?
Aside: nothing but the page of errors from ScienceBlogs with typepad today. So I’m reduced to MovableType again.
Back in 1867, judging by my Chambers Etymological Dictionary of that date, there was no “octopus”, only “octopod”. Treating that as now being an English word, the plural would then be “octopods”.
Humans are not as interesting as octopodes. Nor clearly as tasty.
Oh, those poor little buggers had better still be edible, or their deaths will have been in vain!
Cthulu can be such an arbitrarily cruel bastard sometimes.
I doubt humanity will have as lasting an impact on life, as, say, a comet impact. We’re just the only creature smart enough to know we shouldn’t but stupid enough to do it anyway.
@Steven Mading
I understand your reasoning but the Oxford English Dictionary says it´s “octopodes”. Though wikipedia says “octopuses”.
At least I didn’t do it in a crowded lift.
Whatever happened to “octopi”?
At any rate it seems likely that pollution is the culprit as someone pointed out. There’s a plastic soup twice the size of the fucking US in the ocean, for FSM’s sake. Humans are disgusting. I was going to say pigs, but even a pig will keep clean given the opportunity.
octopi would be wrong because the “us” in octopus isn’t Latin. (using “i” for the plural of a n ‘us” word is specific to latin.)