
Argonauta nodosa
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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Science tells us what we can know but what we can know is little and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive of many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.
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Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: October 20, 2006 7:00 AM, by PZ Myers
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/23864
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Comments
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | October 20, 2006 7:24 AM
Funky.
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | October 20, 2006 7:25 AM
Wow, that's so awe inspiring I could almost pray to it!
Though I think I noticed a few defective cromatophores maybe you should send it back to the manufacturer, er designer...
Posted by: nat | October 20, 2006 8:02 AM
I suppose I can see an eye, but I do not understand the rest of this... thing. Was it submitted to some kind of... compression ?
Posted by: Snail | October 20, 2006 8:17 AM
Nat, the arms are folded back over the shell-like egg case. You can glimpse part of the white wall of the case behind the eye.
Posted by: David Harmon | October 20, 2006 8:18 AM
"I do not understand the rest of this... thing."
Seems you're not alone... e.g., it really is an octopus, but the egg case looks a lot like a nautilus shell. More about it at The Cephalopod Page:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/tcp/Argo.html
Posted by: Toni Riga | October 20, 2006 8:38 AM
That would make a great head for a movie alien.
Posted by: SteveC | October 20, 2006 9:51 AM
I misread the caption as "argonauta medusa" the first time.
Posted by: Stanton | October 20, 2006 10:59 AM
Wowzers!
A mother argonaut!
Do the females die after the eggs hatch, like other octopi?