Those wicked farkers have taken this charming photo of a clutch of innocent cephalopod embryos and … and … oh, I cannot even describe the perversities they have wreaked upon them.
Do you think if I work up a good head of outrage, I’ll be able to get on Fox News, get a few people fired, and shut down the obscene display? Billy Donohue, if you’re reading this, give me a call … I need tips.
…except that I can’t stand poker or gambling of any kind, and I refuse to believe that cephalopods would be stupid enough to indulge in it.
Maybe it’s mocking the dumb one-eyed squid morph.
The LA Times has a cool story about the growing population of Humboldt squid off the Southern California coast — tens of millions of the big beasts, and they aren’t shy.
The frenzy built and Kerstitch, as the lone diver shooting still photographs and with no bright movie lights to deter the predators, was set upon.
A squid grabbed his right swim fin and pulled downward. He kicked it away but another grabbed his head. The cactus-like tentacles found his neck, the only part of his body not covered with neoprene.
He bashed the squid with his dive light, far less bright than the movie lights, and it let go, but it swiped both the light and the gold chain he’d been wearing.
Another squid wrapped its tentacles around his face and chest. Kerstitch dug his fingers into its clammy body.
It slid down and around his waist and pulled him downward in pulsing bursts. Then it suddenly let go, but made off with his compression meter.
For whatever reason, the attack ceased and Kerstitch got to the surface dazed and oozing blood from neck wounds, thankful to be alive.
It sounds like the squid was just mugging him for some bling.
This week in our regular collection of reader-submitted cephaloweirdness, the theme is “domesticity”.
It’ll make it all rubbery!
I hadn’t realized that there were microwave ovens around capable of handling a half-ton of meat.
Here’s a story of a strange large squid carcass hauled up from the Atlantic deep—researchers expect it was between 16 and 24 feet long when alive and intact, but the specimen was a bit gelatinous and damaged and nibbled upon. It’s been tentatively identified as Asperoteuthis acanthoderma, which has previously only been found in the Pacific.
Although muscular squid zip around to catch food, squid with gelatinous bodies typically float in deep, dark waters and let prey find them, Young says. Pacific A. acanthoderma have glowing, prey-alluring pads at the end of their tentacles. Sucker-laden tips on the pads’ ends grab curious prey and hold on until the squid moves in to swallow the food.
At least “that’s what we think happens,” Young says. “No one has yet seen one of these animals alive.”
Did I say it was St Patrick’s Day? I was mistaken…it is actually AIR KRAKEN DAY!
While you’re celebrating with excessive imbibage today, keep scanning the skies—about the time you fall over backwards and your eyes are glazing and defocusing, you might just spot the fabulous air kraken gliding overhead.
It’s been a light week for cephalopod art, and I just have a few more examples below the fold.
Don’t rush to get tickets to New Zealand just yet—the colossal squid is frozen in a block of ice, and they don’t plan to even start thawing it for another year (there aren’t any other reasons to visit NZ than to see the squid, right?).
To minimise handling of the precious specimen, the colossal squid will probably have its temperature raised, over days, in the tank in which it will finally be “fixed”.
“We don’t want to move it too much,” says Marshall.
“When a thing like that is in the water, it’s neutrally buoyant.
“But, of course, when you get it out of the water, you’ve got a big lump of weight and you could try lifting it and your hands would go right through.
“Already it’s got puncture marks from the net.”
Once un-frozen, the creature will be fixed, or embalmed, and then a long-term preservative will be used.
“What I mean by a fixing tank is a tank that you lay it out in, in a natural position, and you then make all the adjustments – align all the arms, pack out the body and all of that. Then you have it in a, say, 5% formalin solution.
“It will require the biggest tank of anything we’ve got.”
Basically, we’re not going to know any more details for a good long while.
