Pharyngula

might not be quite to scale, but they have a reported mantle size of up to 2 meters (6-6). www.cephbase.org/spdb/speciesc.cfm?CephID=306. not as cool as humbold squid though.

Posted by: PhD13 | February 24, 2006 8:14 AM

Squiddy looks limp and on his last, (ahem), leg.....

Posted by: Rocky | February 24, 2006 9:05 AM

Hey, PZ. Speaking of sea monsters. As soon as I dig my way through a couple more books, I'm going to have my friendly neighborhood bookseller bring in some Lovecraft (and Mieville, even more tangentially), largely on the recommendation of yourself and the folks at Crooked Timber. Would you have a suggestion of a particularly good place to start with either author?

Posted by: Todd | February 24, 2006 9:58 AM

Found it online....

http://classiq.net/herbert-george-wells/the-sea-raiders/index.html

Yeah, and that should have been "Wells'".

Posted by: Haploteuthis ferox | February 24, 2006 12:22 PM

Hey Todd, Also try "Dreamquest for Unknown Kadath" and "At the Mountains of Maddness"

Posted by: Love Craft Fan | February 24, 2006 12:45 PM

nice bauplan on that mollusk

Posted by: CCP | February 24, 2006 3:33 PM

Ho. Ly. Crap. That is quite frightening.

Posted by: Xavier | February 24, 2006 7:48 PM

It's the end of Octopus Week at the Seattle Aquarium.
I posted about it under "Octopus Sex," but it was an old thread so nobody saw it. (Go look if you want links to a news story or the aquarium.)

Tomorrow (Saturday) at noon they'll release the male who is, we hope, the daddy of a bunch of soon-to-be-laid octopod eggs.

Mikala will stay to, one hopes, tend the little darlings.

I have a volunteer training session there tomorrow -- Plankton, Inverts, Jellies and Octopods -- and I bet we trainees get to watch. And learn.

I'll let you all know about the presence or absence of the octobabes as soon as I find out. Wa-hoo!!!

Posted by: Steff Z | February 24, 2006 11:48 PM

OK, I went to the Aquarium, and observed and asked and learned.

Here is the Octopus Report.
Mikala and Lancelot did, in fact, mate on the 14th. One of the spermatophores was still trailing out of her mantle cavity today (it was pretty transparent, so presumably empty by now).

The two 'pods are still tank-sharing: the humans haven't replaced the barrier between tanks. During the first break in volunteer training today (whee! plankton tow!), they were piled up on each other, arms all gnarled together. By the noon octopus release event, M. had wandered off into the (1 m diameter) tube between the two tanks. (That's when I saw the "streamer.")

The octo released today was a backup guy, JB, who was starting to senesce. (Gotta have some spare octopuses at all times, right?) The Aq. lets them go so they have a chance, at least, to breed. (There are octopus dens below/around the Aq. pier, so it's not necessarily wishful thinking and problem-shunting.)
JB, when released, inked a bit while being convinced to leave the bucket for the open sea (well, Elliott Bay). But then he swam to the bottom (40 ft, around 12 m) among the pilings, then climbed up one a little and perched there. He was, by then, alert but not upset: red, but not splotchy and flashing. (Then we had to go back to "class.")
They'll release Lancelot sometime next week. They *know* he's spawned, and is not long among us. But even so, he might get to breed again.

To start our gruelling course of voulnteer training, Dr. Roland Anderson -- the fabulous octopus researcher -- gave a talk to us newbies about the cephalopods of Puget Sound.
It was a good talk, full of life-history stories about marvellous organisms, by an expert who clearly loves the critters. Yay! (Also, inside scoop: those 12 roses were icky to clean up, after the smarmy Valentine's mood-setting stunt. Rose petals. In sea water. For hours. Ewww.)

Man, those stubby squid (Rossia pacifica) are the best!!!! (They're closer to cuttlefish than most squid: "sepiolid".) They burrow under the sediment during the day, sticking their siphons straight up to breathe. That's a talent most cephs don't have: inhaling AND exhaling through the siphon, not using mantle-cavity flapping. (I bet they could play digeridoo, too.) (Wait, maybe they already are.)
And we get a few of the above Moroteuthis washed into the Sound most summers.
Market squid (Loligo opalescens) breed here each winter; red octos (Octopus rubescens) abound; and of course the Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dolfleini) were, well, giant.

The red octos on display were hiding mostly (it was daytime). One had been set up in a tank with a maze made of plastic pet-rodent tubing, with glass "rocks" on the bottom. That little 'pod squeezed itself into one of the small "nest" segments of the tubing, with just its eyes and siphon sticking up. OMG it was soooooooo cute!!!1!! Good view of the arms and suction cups, too. It had also moved some of the glass pebbles into the maze next to the nest. Most, next to one opening, few next to the other: ? dead-end burrows are more comfy? The octo probably weighed around 50-70 g, and the glass bits were the size of large marbles, had to be 20 g. That took work.

I'll keep posting updates about egglaying and development. Doubtless PZ will provide a sufficiently current cephalopod thread at all times.

Posted by: Steff Z | February 26, 2006 3:01 AM