Friday Cephalopod: Why am I thinking of the Mandelbrot set?
Category: Organisms
Posted on: July 28, 2006 7:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Octopus bocki
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
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Octopus bocki
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Comments
Because Otto here's trying to appear irreducibly complex, or at least inedibly spiky? :-)
Seriously, that looks like one heck of a threat display.
Posted by: David Harmon | July 28, 2006 7:36 AM
Cool Photo! The curls at the end of the tentacles are a nice touch.
Posted by: Paguroidea | July 28, 2006 7:43 AM
It's fractaliscious!
Posted by: Rev. bigDumbChimp | July 28, 2006 7:49 AM
Otto? No way, that has to be Julia and she's just trying to exit stage left out of the spotlight.
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | July 28, 2006 8:23 AM
I'm going to call it "Boc's Oc" from now on!
Posted by: Diaphanus | July 28, 2006 10:06 AM
Chaos theory, cephalopods... it works for me. With one twitch of his Mandelbrotian tentacle this little guy sets in motion the natural events that eventually cause the freak hailstorm that wreaks havoc on the 2007 World Creationist Conference... An octopus beats his wings in China... er, nevermind. ;)
Posted by: k8 | July 28, 2006 11:09 AM
These photos are really beautiful. (I hope you have permission from Norman and the publisher!)
Posted by: Vance Maverick | July 28, 2006 12:48 PM
Why aren't there any college or highschool sports teams named after cephalopods ? Instead of the boring and overused "tigers" "panthers" and other felids. Is it that you can't have a msacot whose IQ exceeds that of the average creationist ?? Hmm
Posted by: umilik | July 28, 2006 1:08 PM
I'm a bit cephalapod-ignorant. This may be a silly question, but I wonder which way is "up" to these critters? Tentacles down, head up? Tentacles behind, eyes up? Tentacles in front, eyes down? Anyone?
Posted by: trixie | July 28, 2006 3:20 PM
So a quick google search on "cephalopod mascot" returns this:
...it's so EASY to find information on the web. Now as to its veracity... off to the wikipedia.
I thought my alma mater was a bit weird: GO, banana slugs!
Posted by: thwaite | July 28, 2006 4:46 PM
Vance Maverick, I hope the publisher sees the inherent advertising in what Dr. Myers does. Because of his scans of the photos in the book, I went out last week and ordered a copy from Amazon. At $65 a pop, I hope they appreciate that I would've never bought the book without seeing these gorgeous photos first here on this site.
Posted by: sc | July 28, 2006 4:49 PM
PZ should look up the Octopus poem of Arthur Clement Hilton that begins:
Strange beauty, eight limbed and eight handed,
Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?
With thy bosom bespangled and banded
With the hues of the seas and the skies;
Is thy home European or Asian,
O mystical monster marine?
Part molluscous and partly crustacean,
Betwixt and between.
Posted by: Jim Harrison | July 28, 2006 5:44 PM