Animated gif, so below the fold to spare everyone the constant distraction.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Animated gif, so below the fold to spare everyone the constant distraction.
Won’t somebody think of the children!?
I, for one, would welcome cephalopod regime change.
I never imagined something could be so adorable and so terrifying at the same time.
Marcus:
Me too.
My first thought was someone should really learn to use a Hankerchief .
What species is it?
Did some spacecraft bring this adorable monsteralette back to Earth? Apparently they can survive the conditions here, bringing along their own slime.
Study your Martian dictionary folks, and don’t forget the grammer.
“I, for one, would welcome cephalopod regime change.”
Me too. We could use a leader with more spine than the one currently in office.
It’s very cute.
I’ll echo jasen777’s question: what species is it?
A human obsession – pick up small animals and tell them that they are their masters.
The mildly deranged penguin says that specimen is an example of a very aged Spider Cheese, perhaps best known for shrinking in size as they age. When born, by hatching from a supernova, they are Jupiter-sized tenuous clouds of unaged cheese. Hard to gather even a small sample to taste, and then tasting very foul at such an early unripened age.
Baby Spider Cheeses spew out from the supernova in great swarms in all directions. Barring accidents, or encounters with quasars, peas, or other dangers such as the mildly deranged penguin, as they age and ripen, they pull themselves together into the classic shape of a ball in the middle with lots of “arms” or “tentacles”. Those arms are technically known as Pewpews. Pewpews briefly fluoresce when broken off larger, younger, specimens, and cheeselogists initially though Spider Cheeses could shoot them, Pew Pew!
Spider Cheeses shrink, age, and swim around the Universe, leading to suggestions they are both Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Swimming around pushes things apart, and they are notoriously hard to spot when large, young, and not ripe.
The mating rituals are completely unknown. Since the end result is the laying of a “gas cloud” which becomes a star and then blows up when ready to hatch, theorists have speculated the mating process is mutually self-destructive. Presumably they eat each other, which means they probably don’t mate until they have ripened and become quite tasty.
If true, then the above specimen has shrunk to a very old, small, age without ever mating. It is clearly ripe, hosting a lovely green exterior mold (which is edible). They are quite hard to find when so old, small, and ripe, despite being very visible, as there are very very few in each cubic parsec of space. However, if enough are captured by a star’s gravity, they can form a low-density “Oort cloud”-like structure orbiting the star. Wild-caught Spider Cheeses are usually hunted in such clouds.
The mildly deranged penguin suggests giving it a though rinsing in clean water to wash off any stardust or peas, and then eating whole. Save the Pewpews for last, as that’s where the most developed flavour is. A decent red Burgundy is the usual accompaniment, albeit they are also good with a chilled saké, or, when in a salad with tomatoes and drizzled with Unicorn-approved olive oil, a Greek Retsina.