Comments

  3. grolby says

    Okay, I’m not usually one for the K-3 crowd, but I gotta admit: that’s pretty frickin’ adorable.

  9. Jeanette says

    Awwwww… and I’m not one of those people who goes around cooing at babies or really associating with non-adult humans (beyond giving out candy at Halloween). But so far that’s the cutest slimy critter you’ve posted today (even cuter than the smiling embryo triplets).

  11. Rebecca C. says

    Damn it! I come to Pharyngula specifically to NOT trick my ovaries into wanting babies! Grr!

  12. KillerChihuahua says

    Oh, how absolutely ADORABLE! I’m sorry, PZ, but this is the cutest cephalopod I’ve ever seen. It even tops the cute little lab squid.

  15. MikeM says

    Okay, somehow I gotta share.

    My wife decided to dress up as Sarah Palin. Went to Marshall’s to buy a business suit; got a beehive and had it customized by her sister-in-law, and now the bangs bobble when she blinks her eyes; lapel pins; the whole nine yards.

    Spittin’ image.

    Complete turnoff. I want my wife back.

    I’ll try and send you the image. Can’t make any promises. But frankly, she wins. Everyone else, you can quit trying now. Resistance is futile.

  16. Owlmirror says

    Bah! “Xavia” isn’t even a proper Linnaean binomial!!

    Xavia pseudocephalopodans?

    Xavia adorabellans?

    And is there a cladist in the house? Where does this organism actually belong?!?!*

    ___________________________________
    * I know, I know… with her mommy.

  18. Brad D says

    My wife got a little black spider costume kind of like that for our 23 month old daughter. Maybe I’ll link a pic tomorrow… but she’s often too fast for the auto focus and exposure metering lag of our digital camera, resulting in many images of the back of her head.

  20. Bren Finan says

    Proof of evolution!

    Surely this highly-developed camouflage will serve it well in infiltrating the Myers habitat.

  21. HadasS says

    I’m totally getting my niece one when she’s older (only two months now). And yeah, I like kids. Shoot me.

  22. Jello says

    “Damn it! I come to Pharyngula specifically to NOT trick my ovaries into wanting babies! Grr!”

    Just think of how much trouble it must have been getting her to put that thing on and you should be fine. Just remember, there only cute when your not the one cleaning up after them.

  23. Claudia says

    Absolutely adorable! I’m now totally regretting allowing my husband to talk me out of dressing up our 2 year old because he is “too young for that sort of stuff”. :((

  25. ThirtyFiveUp says

    Will there be a poem? Please, please, with sugar on top?

    (Cuttlefish may be published soon, and I will buy the book.)

  26. Keenacat says

    *gasp*
    I absolutely love kids (yes, I actually can handle a screaming bunch of them) and this one is extraordinarily cute! Makes me want to hug and cuddle some cephalopods.

  27. MikeM says

    Just remember, there (sic) only cute when your (sic) not the one cleaning up after them.

    Wanna hear some stories?

    Eh, never mind. Mine are 11 and 14; I could write a book. Course, no one would buy it.

    (Sorry about the sics…)

  29. Sabazinus says

    The Elder Gods have finally woken…and they’re a lot smaller and cuter than we expected.

  30. Xavia's Dad says

    Imagine my delight when I got her down for a nap and went downstairs for my Pharyngula fix…

    As soon as we saw that costume, I was thinking Friday Cephalopod all the way. When I found out Halloween was on a Friday, we couldn’t resist submitting it.

    She’s smart and curious. Might be the REAL scientist in the family.

    A lot of people told us that when she was born we’d get religion. Not so. I did get a sense of peace about my own mortality, since I’d be making way for this little one.

    Thanks for posting it, PZ. Glad the rest of the community enjoyed it as well.

  31. KillerChihuahua says

    ThirtyFiveUp said:

    Will there be a poem? Please, please, with sugar on top?
    (Cuttlefish may be published soon, and I will buy the book.)

    +1, certainly on the “Buy”.

  33. Susan says

    I did get a sense of peace about my own mortality, since I’d be making way for this little one.

    I don’t see this mentioned very often, but I found that to be one of the excellent side effects of parenthood, too.

    That is a fantastic costume, and she is extremely cute. The weirdest costume I ever made for one of my kids (back when they were too young to protest) was also aquatic: it involved a paper mache oyster shell and dressing the 18-month old all in white and sticking him inside (he was a pearl). My husband had a great time lugging him around the neighborhood, and I was banished from costume-design projects for awhile.

  34. Tim H says

    I sense an opportunity for the advancement of science education, general knowledge of evolution, and………….profit! For Halloween next year someone should produce a line of taxonomically correct costumes. Obviously some could be cute like this, others could be more realistic. What 9yr old boy wouldn’t want to be dressed as a thoroughly scary trilobite? Either in stores or online, the costumes would be sorted by phylum. Schools could be asked to participate- the kiddies could learn about cladistics while having fun at the party.

    Or maybe not. (I distictly remember dressing as a tiger one year, and a leopard the next. Costumes homemade by mom. In first grade, I dressed as a rocket. Apollo 6 1/4. (corresponding to my age. That was in 1970, so it was current.))

  40. Tor A H says

    ggab: “I gotta get me one of those.
    What do you feed them?”

    Kids, obviously. The legs from the last meal are still sticking out.

  41. Slaughter says

    Such a cutie! Beats the dolphin and Shamu costumes I made for my son when he was 5 and 6. Or the Southwest Airlines jet I made for him when he was 4. He knocked over a bunch of things at school with his wingspan…

  42. JohnnieCanuck, FCD says

    Remember, no Calimari jokes!

    First one to make a calimari reference gets disemvoweled. Let’s see if this gets the anticipated result.

  45. Sili says

    The Elder Gods have finally woken…and they’re a lot smaller and cuter than we expected.
    Sabazinus | October 31, 2008 1:24 PM

    You never read Ghastly’s, did you?

    Cute, indeed! (And I hate kids. Even with spuds, gravy, cowberries and Waldorf salad). Even beats this little vertebrate.

  47. Steve in MI, Sfs/PZM says

    @Chiaroscuro:

    That’s strange… you make it sound as if that would *detract* from the cuteness.

    To each their aesthetics, I suppose.

  49. Tim says

    Brad D #18, Try it with a DSLR, much less shutter lag. And you’ll need the fast response when those tentacles start whipping.

  50. Claire says

    What a stinkin’ cute kid. It slightly makes me want to have a kid so I can dress him/her up in cute costumes. I remember when my mom made a dinosaur costume for me when I was little, best thing ever. Happy Halloween everyone!!

  51. kitsunerei88 says

    That’s adorable!

    OT: It also reminds me that last week in the largest residence on my university campus, some people stuffed octopi down the toilets for a prank. Two octopi. (sometimes my campus does weird things. This beats lobsters in the showers though).

  52. amphiox says

    Gasp!

    It’s got a muscular foot and a mantle, but a dorsal nerve chord, vertebrae, and corneal inverted-retina eyes with c-opsin photoreceptors! It’s a true chimera that could only have arisen through intelligent design (and sewing)!

    This. . . thing. . . this. . . abomination unto Darwin the Father, Dawkins the Son, and Hitchens the unholy spirit. . . .

    Quick! We must hide the evidence to maintain the evolutionist conspiracy! Take down the blog post! Burn the pictures! Bribe the family to move to Cancun. . . .