Octopus ornatus
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
archy warns us of an invasion of giant commie crabs. Invasive species are no joke, but in this case, I can think of some solutions: they all revolve around lunch and dinner, though.
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.
Any New Jersey readers out there? Anyone from Seaside Heights?
Why didn’t you tell me?
I had to find out about this exciting event in the grocery store checkout line. I was most interested to learn that it ravaged the shore line during a recent storm, but seems to have put most of its effort into destroying a church.
Hmmm. I didn’t do it, officer.
I won’t post this lovely print directly, since it might not be safe for work—not because it shows breasts, but because if any of your passing colleagues know anything about molluscan anatomy, they’ll realize that that cephalopod is gnawing on her head and be horrified.
(hat tip to Leslie Madsen-Brooks)
There is now an online petition to save the Australian Lungfish. Take a moment and put your name on it!
Also, it’s not just the lungfish—as Monika Dieker reminded me, there’s also the Mary River Turtle at risk.
Here are a few miscellaneous cephalopod-related things people have sent me lately.
Darren Naish has a fine summary of the hypothesis that the megabats are flying primates. It’s a tangled tree we’re flitting about in here.
You all remember that a program on the giant squid is on the Discovery Channel tonight, right? I’m tuned in right now.
Lots of people have been emailing me with the news about this filmed sequence showing a giant squid snagged on a deep line. Did you know that the paper is freely available online (pdf)? It’s very cool. The researchers were jigging for squid with a 1km long line, snagged one by a tentacle, and then watched for the next four hours as it struggled to get free.
The squid’s initial
attack was captured on camera (figure 3a) and shows the
two long tentacles characteristic of giant squid wrapped in
a ball around the bait. The giant squid became snagged
on the squid jig by the club of one of these long tentacles.
More than 550 digital images were taken over the
subsequent 4 h which record the squid’s repeated
attempts to detach from the jig. For the first 20 min,
the squid disappeared from view as it actively swam away
from the camera system. For the next 80 min, the squid
repeatedly approached the line, spreading its arms widely
(e.g. figure 3b) or enveloping the line. During this period
the entire camera system was drawn upwards by the squid
from 900 m to a depth of 600 m (figure 3g). Over the
subsequent 3 h, the squid and system slowly returned to
the planned deployment depth of 1000 m. For the last
hour, the line was out of the camera frame, suggesting
that the squid was attempting to break free by swimming
(finning and/or jetting) away from the system. Four hours
and 13 min after becoming snagged, the attached tentacle
broke, as seen by sudden slackness in the line (figure 3c
versus d ). The severed tentacle remained attached to the
line and was retrieved with the camera system (figure 3e).
The recovered section of tentacle was still functioning,
with the large suckers of the tentacle club repeatedly
gripping the boat deck and any offered fingers (figure 3f ).
I’ve put the figure they describe below the fold. It’s a thing of beauty: an 8meter (26 foot) beast attacking the bait. Remind me not to go swimming below 500m, OK?
