Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: November 24, 2006 11:43 AM, by PZ Myers
How many of you have a picked-over carcass in your refrigerator?
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
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Comments
Ew.
Posted by: Martin Wagner | November 24, 2006 11:47 AM
Actually PZ, no pick-over carcasses, but my freezer was always filled with roadkill if not squid. My little necropsies tended to be smelly when they defrosted, but I did learn.
Posted by: Carl Buell (OGeorge) | November 24, 2006 11:57 AM
That's a disgusting picture. Poor Cephalopod.
Posted by: Monika | November 24, 2006 12:24 PM
This reminds me of a fable from the the "My Three Suns" episode of Futurama:
Fry: Hell, no. If I stopped to think ahead, I wouldn't be Emperor. And I wouldn't even be here in the year 3000. It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns and also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?
Leela: I give up! You're gonna get yourself killed and this time I won't be here to save you.
Fry: Who asked you to? I told you a hundred times to stop treating me like a baby. Now go. Go gather your nuts, you nagging grasshopper.
Posted by: Harelquin | November 24, 2006 12:37 PM
I love Fry ;-)
Posted by: Ithika | November 24, 2006 1:25 PM
Steve O'Shea has FSM-only-knows how many giant ceph carcasses in his freezer, but this Thanksgiving he's got an even bigger one (but a vertebrate)
Posted by: Mark Montague | November 24, 2006 1:55 PM
That's a bloody hell of a lot of calamari. Sorry, I am not going to help you finish it off. By me, eating calamari is like chewing on rubber bands.
I suspect my son would be more than willing to help out, though.
Posted by: anomalous4 | November 24, 2006 2:04 PM
What species is it?
Posted by: undergrad :( | November 24, 2006 2:37 PM
yummeh.
Posted by: emily | November 24, 2006 3:49 PM
Looking at that squid on the table, it seems like it's about ready to slide apart under its own weight. I wonder if it'd be practical to perform a dissection of the beastie underwater, so that the description of all the organs doesn't start with "flattened shape..."
Posted by: mjfgates | November 24, 2006 4:58 PM
That's a disgusting picture. Poor Cephalopod.
Don't worry, it was DOA.
I'm pretty sure that's a specimen at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne.
Posted by: Snail | November 25, 2006 12:07 AM
I remember Steve O'Shea stinking out the Biology block at Auckland Uni because he left a rather large borrowed specimen on his desk while he was away. The smell started to slowly permeate all available airspace, until someone in desperation taped up the gaps in the door frame. As I recall, Steve got rather green around the gills when mopping it all up!
Posted by: KiwiInOz | November 26, 2006 11:40 PM