Chew your food!


Don’t just bolt it down! Chew it until there’s no doubting it’s dead. Especially if it’s an octopus.

Stephens says that the 4.6-pound cephalopod appeared to have grabbed onto Gilligan’s larynx with a tentacle, preventing it from reconnecting to the dolphin’s breathing apparatus and effectively suffocating him to death.

“That octopus might have been, in theory, dead, but the sucker was still functional,” Stephens says, adding that while nobody wins in a situation like this, “the octopus gets a bit of a last hurrah.”

What a horrible way to go — not only choking to death, but getting your post mortem photo plastered on websites as an example of gluttony. Or being murdered by a mammal, and having your arms shown dangling from its mouth.

Comments

  1. wzrd1 says

    Alas, dolphins are not well equipped to chew their food.
    But, it does appear that it’s food nearly had the opportunity to chew its predators larynx.

  2. killyosaur says

    The headline to that article feels like it buries the lead a bit. Should either be Octopus defends against dolphin attack, dies trying or Octopus gets final act of revenge, kills dolphin :P

    @3 I think that due to the size of the sperm whale, including the size of the their teeth, it is a lot harder for their cephalopod prey to gain a similar upper hand. Not that they don’t sustain injuries (many have shown scarring from battles with the various sized squid they eat). Also due to how deep they tend to dive to acquire their food, it is probable that we will never know if a prey animal of a sperm whale did successfully “win” a battle as the corpse probably just sank to the bottom of the ocean…

  3. birgerjohansson says

    It might be useful to have two sets of jaws, like the moray eel and the xenomorph.

  4. silvrhalide says

    Well, it wouldn’t be the first hungry carnivore to bite off more than it could chew… eyes bigger than stomach, so to speak.
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/photo-in-the-news-python-bursts-after-eating-gator-update
    here’s one not behind a paywall
    https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/python-explodes-after-swallowing-6-foot-alligator-in-florida-everglades/#:~:text=It%20appears%20that%20the%2013,the%20Burmese%20python%20is%20not.

    shoulda listened to its mom. “Chew that, don’t just hork it down! Take smaller mouthfuls!”

  5. hemidactylus says

    And I thought I had trouble chewing octopus sushi. All I wound up with was a messy floss job trying to dislodge the suckers from my teeth. Octopus is like a cross between flavorless gum and a piece of dish sponge. But I was lucky, not trying to swallow a live one whole.

    Orcas manage to subdue frickin’ white sharks and this bozo gets offed by an octopus.

    BTW I have been wondering about My Octopus Teacher. I already got spoiled by reading about the ending which I guess was inevitable.

  6. StevoR says

    “That octopus might have been, in theory, dead, but the sucker was still functional,” Stephens says,

    Er, pretty sure it was dead in practice too – or dying or was it?

    Do not mess with octopuses, people. They will cut you. They will cut you while they are inside you.

    (From the link) Erm, that’s NOT a “cut” exactly more a sucker stick thing – tho’ guess its beak or, do they not have some barbs on their suckers or something like that, might have also cut too? But yeah, that pedantry aside, don’t mess with them!

  7. killyosaur says

    @11 well I wouldn’t be too impressed by an Orca’s ability to subdue great whites. An orca is typically larger on average than most great whites (male Orcas range from 6 to 8 meters, whereas most great whites are only around 5 meters or less on average), and travel in pods. Subduing a shark, any shark, just involves flipping them over. As much as I love the Great White, and I do, they tend to be easy meals for Orcas who are interested in eating them and their livers.