Friday Cephalopod: Eye of the cuttlefish
Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: May 18, 2007 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Sepia latimanus
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.
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Comments
Posted by: RickU | May 18, 2007 6:39 AM
Cuttlefish are, by far, my favorite animal.
Posted by: RickU | May 18, 2007 6:39 AM
Cuttlefish are, by far, my favorite animal.
Posted by: hipparchia | May 18, 2007 6:58 AM
Now you can take your aquatic animals anywhere with you. Russian cars recommended:
http://www.totallycrap.com/videos/videos_bulgarian_way_of_selling_fish
Posted by: Andrew | May 18, 2007 9:02 AM
That is such a lovely creature.
Posted by: MegS | May 18, 2007 10:24 AM
I've always wondered about pupil shape in cephalopods. What's a functional explaination for this one?
Posted by: jba | May 18, 2007 11:06 AM
cuttlefish rule. I saw a very good documentary on PBS about them recently (I cant remember the name) but they had some amazing shots of them flashing skins changes at prey and other general badassness.
Posted by: Monado | May 18, 2007 12:01 PM
Beautiful! Awesome!
I must admit that when I read Carl Zimmer's description of vertebrates' randomly designed, backwards eyesight I felt a stab of envy towards cephalapods. None of my children's children's children will see as well as this short-lived creature, who has eyesight that would stand up to decades of living.
It was worse than discovering that turtles have four sets of rods & cones to our three, and thus presumably see in colors we can't even imagine. I wonder if some ambitious grad student is testing them in color recognition of ecru vs. eggshell vs. offwhite?
Posted by: thwaite | May 18, 2007 12:48 PM
More cephalopod love from an unexpected source: a British bloke's blog on computer security. Semi-regular Friday homages (use its search engine for earlier Fridays):
May 11, 2007
Friday Squid Blogging: Lego Squid ... "it looks dorky. It's mechanical, a robot. And an octupus!"
April 13, 2007
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Birth Video
April 06, 2007
Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squids off California!
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 18, 2007 1:08 PM
Um, Bruce Schneier lives in Minneapolis. We have a kind of Minnesota Cephalopod Mafia thing going on here.
Posted by: Paguroidea | May 18, 2007 1:32 PM
I wonder if there is a relationship between the distance one lives from the ocean and being a cephalopod afficionado.
Posted by: thwaite | May 18, 2007 2:16 PM
Eh - Minneapolis? The wikipedia page for him agrees, but looking at Bruce Schneier's contact info on his personal blog page shows a physical address up the road from me, in Mountain View, CA. And his company 'BT Counterpane' also says it's in Mountain View.
Not sure where I got the notion that he's a British bloke, and his wikipedia page says US, so scratch that.
And yes, I've understood Minnesota universities to have (had?) some of the best programs in limnology (understandable) *and* in oceanography.
JBA: The PBS program on cuttlefish was probably this: Kings of Camouflage (this teachers' page links to the rest of their site
Posted by: Trip the Space Parasite | May 18, 2007 2:24 PM
Monado @ #7,
Nah, by three generations from now, your great-grandkids will probably have eyes that are built the right way 'round and absurdly polychromat. They'll buy them on eBay.
Posted by: Scholar | May 18, 2007 5:04 PM
I overheard somebody say that the Eye is proof of God. Have you ever heard that? (I'm sure)
Then I explained the whole evolution of the eye for 5 minutes.
And the response I got.. "Isn't God Great"
Posted by: pablo | May 18, 2007 7:18 PM
Not to be nit picky but aren't they in the mollusca phylum?
Posted by: Monado | May 19, 2007 11:02 AM
Thanks, Trip! That cheers me up no end.
Thwaite, that isn't just any bloke on computer security, it's Bruce Schneier!. He has a posse of his own. It's well known that Bruce Schneir feeds Schroedinger's cat on his back porch--without opening the box.
Posted by: Monado | May 19, 2007 11:08 AM
Sorry, "Schneier" - my fingers aren't awake yet.
Posted by: thwaite | May 19, 2007 8:35 PM
Hopelessly OT: yes, I got that factoid and others about that bloke Schneier from the links at his wikipedia page - and just having a page of one's own is a clue of something.
As for the link to geekz you gave, I see they celebrate him and Donald Knuth as equally significant founders of computer science. Be that as it may, Knuth is also famous (notorious) for his recent book "3:16" - a title referring to John 3:16. The book's content takes the corresponding verse of every book of the Bible and propounds an exegesis for it. Presumably updated to the digital information age... so weird, it's ripe for parody, and here's one: a page ostensibly from far in the future providing a fractured historical summary of Knuth's career.