Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
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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Pycnogonid tagmosis and echoes of the Cambrian
Upstream plasticity and downstream robustness in evolution of molecular networks
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« Wells lies. Again. | Main | Sacrilege and cephalopod »
Category: Organisms
Posted on: August 31, 2007 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Vampyroteuthis gazes at you with its terrible ancient eye…
Close it, please, for the love of heaven, close it!
JEBUS! It's got a sphincter for an eye! OPEN IT AGAIN! OPEN IT AGAIN!
Figure from The Deep(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Claire Nouvian.
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Comments
That's as close as it gets to matching gaze with Cthulhu and living.
Posted by: Ezekiel Buchheit | August 31, 2007 6:24 AM
It looks like a plush toy (with a veined crystal eye).
Posted by: SEF | August 31, 2007 6:40 AM
I swear, that looks like Ken Ham winking at his congregation!
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | August 31, 2007 6:51 AM
I swear, that looks like Ken Ham winking at his congregation!
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | August 31, 2007 6:53 AM
Sorry, I clicked twice:)
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | August 31, 2007 6:55 AM
Look at the reflection! It looks like it's staring into the depths beyond time and space.
Posted by: Thrawn | August 31, 2007 6:59 AM
PZ, you have a great sense of humour!
Posted by: MH | August 31, 2007 7:03 AM
Yes, yes that is a sphincter.
Way to start my Friday.
Posted by: kmiers | August 31, 2007 7:21 AM
just... wow.
Posted by: dorid | August 31, 2007 7:37 AM
I can has SAN loss?
Posted by: maybecca | August 31, 2007 7:45 AM
Holy crap that looks freaky when closed.
Posted by: OptimusShr | August 31, 2007 7:46 AM
There once was a squid named BILL
Who really loved to hunt and to KILL
He searched each night for his favorite FOOD
It truly put him in the perfect MOOD
In fact, when he ate those who say CREATION
From the other squid he'd get a standing OVATION
There once was a squid named BILL
Of religion, he got his daily FILL
His eyes were as blue as a moon-lit NIGHT
And his most deadly feature was his atheist BITE
But Bill the squid took life pretty EZ
In fact, he loved to read his early morning PZ
Posted by: MarcusA | August 31, 2007 8:00 AM
Awesome.
Posted by: Daniel | August 31, 2007 8:09 AM
Gotta love the vampire squid from hell!
Posted by: akaoni | August 31, 2007 8:26 AM
WOW, that eye looks like a sapphire. I must admit that I have always found the cephalopods interesting but no more so than many others. However, I now look forward to the Friday cephalopod with eager anticipation to see what jewel you will present us and I have to say that they just get better and better.
Posted by: John Phillips | August 31, 2007 8:29 AM
Am I the only one who noticed that 'for the love of heaven' was included in the original post? Does atheism take a holiday when cephalopods are mentioned?
Awesome creature!
Posted by: Man of Science | August 31, 2007 8:34 AM
Any one else see the scuba diver's reflection bottom left of the first eye picture? It seems unlikely as this was more likely taken in an Aquarium or some such.
Posted by: sailor | August 31, 2007 8:48 AM
I'm glad I'm seeing this in the morning. Looking at that before going to sleep would NOT be good.
Posted by: The Mad Patriot | August 31, 2007 9:16 AM
Incidentally, it would be cool if someone who is good with morphing software made an animation from those two images.
Posted by: The Mad Patriot | August 31, 2007 9:18 AM
That's not a scuba diver being reflected in the eye-- it's what's for dinner!
Posted by: DaveX | August 31, 2007 9:20 AM
Really cool cephalopod!
Stupid question:
what do vampire squid feed on, i.e. as a source of blood? Whales? Fish?
How big is this thing? (feet or meters)
PBC.
Posted by: protobiochemist | August 31, 2007 9:20 AM
This is, without a doubt, for me, one of the funniest commentaries PZ has ever given on this site. I literally LOL'd.
Posted by: Chris Gruber, FCD | August 31, 2007 9:26 AM
I'm lazy on Friday mornings....
The internet tells me it's about 13 cm long (approx. 1/2 a foot for the rest of you),
and from Wiki: "Copepods, prawns and cnidarians have all been reported as prey of Vampire Squid".
I promise never to site Wiki again.....lazy Fridays...
PBC.
Posted by: protobiochemist | August 31, 2007 9:29 AM
and that's how to shut kids up when you're babysitting.
Lepht
Posted by: Lepht | August 31, 2007 9:42 AM
I am a horrible nerd: when I saw what PZ wrote under the second photo, my thoughts turned to Star Wars:
CLOSE THE BLAST DOORS!
OPEN THE BLAST DOORS! OPEN THE BLAST DOORS!
That reflection in the eye, therefore, isn't a scuba diver, it's a droid.
Posted by: TheBrummell | August 31, 2007 9:50 AM
Exaptation or adaptation?
Posted by: cubicle charlie | August 31, 2007 9:54 AM
This has to be the funniest thing I've read in a long time. There might be some use for you yet.
Posted by: Melinda Barton | August 31, 2007 10:42 AM
Laugh out loud funny! Now It's just a matter of cleaning up this spill...
Posted by: syslfrog | August 31, 2007 11:04 AM
#16 - There may indeed be atheists in foxholes, but never when confronted with sphincter-eyed, submarine, widdle-in-your-wetsuit horrors.
Or maybe PZ's suffering SAN loss like #10 suggested?
Posted by: Phy | August 31, 2007 11:06 AM
Are you flirtin' with me? You flirtin' with me? You flirtin' with me? Then who the hell else are you flirtin' with?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | August 31, 2007 11:37 AM
"It's got a sphincter for an eye"
PZ Clearly, you have been dealing with way too many arseholes on your blog recently.
Posted by: sailor | August 31, 2007 11:45 AM
Vampyroteuthis nothing. That there is a Third Stage Guild Navigator.
He who controls the spice controls the universe!
Posted by: Brownian | August 31, 2007 12:33 PM
That is at once one of the most beautiful things and the most heeby-jeeby-what-the-hell-IS-that-thing horrors I've ever seen.
Posted by: M | August 31, 2007 12:39 PM
It's really neat how you can just make out the diver (?) in its eye in the first photo.
Pretty pictures! Where did you find them online?
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | August 31, 2007 12:58 PM
I didn't find them online! There are these amazing things called "books" that contain huge amounts of quality information, more and better stuff than you'll usually find on the web. I recommend them as a source to all bloggers.
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 31, 2007 1:15 PM
Pfft. "Books". What are you, Amish? No one reads books anymore.
You're probably still eatin' "food" and breathin' "air" too, PZ.
Uh, like, welcome to the 21st century, people.
Posted by: Brownian | August 31, 2007 1:24 PM
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Vampyroteuthis_illustration_2.jpg
Vampyroteuthis infernalis. I like it :)
Posted by: Fer | August 31, 2007 1:54 PM
Damn. Someone beat me to the obligatory 'Dune' reference. Nice job, Brownian.
Posted by: Booger | August 31, 2007 2:11 PM
PZ's commentary reminds me of nothing more than Yosemite Sam, as the Black Knight, shouting at Bugs Bunny in the castle: "Open that drawbridge! Open, I say!" (Drawbridge slams open, crushing Sam into a tin can) (Muffled:) "Close it! Close it! Close it up again!"
Except, you know, in reverse.
Posted by: Squiddhartha | August 31, 2007 2:13 PM
This from one of the commenters at Barry's site. He can to Dave Barry, but Pharyngula is blocked?
Posted by: AemJeff | August 31, 2007 3:09 PM
Oh do I love Vampy. Thanks, PZ.
Posted by: Rich | August 31, 2007 3:26 PM
Wow, suddenly all that anti-wrinkle eye cream I've been using seems like money well spent.
Posted by: Ann | August 31, 2007 3:42 PM
http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/plush_cthulhu.html
Posted by: AaronInSanDiego | August 31, 2007 3:49 PM
Or how about this one:
http://www.vikingsquidcomics.com/commission/deluxesquid.jpg
Posted by: AaronInSanDiego | August 31, 2007 3:53 PM
No, like itself - just the look of its surface and details.
I do have a MIB Cthulhu though - and a Nyarlathotep (which is cuter). Unfortunately the pair of plush octopus toys I got a while back (and only opened the other day) turned out to have smiles stitched onto the back of their mantles instead of having beaks in the proper place. I had to explain to the sproglets how they weren't anatomically accurate.
Posted by: SEF | August 31, 2007 5:33 PM
Books? BOOKS? Those things that look like a bunch of blog posts printed and glued together?
Posted by: slang | August 31, 2007 7:44 PM
i dont think this is real ...
Posted by: subcorpus | August 31, 2007 8:52 PM
I made an animated gif on gickr.com slick link to see.
http://arbyn.blogdrive.com/archive/264.html
Posted by: arbyn | August 31, 2007 11:45 PM
PZ, I just came across your blog and now, my friend, you are my new hero.
Posted by: baldwithglasses | September 1, 2007 12:05 AM
A veritable cephalolpod.
Posted by: Hank | September 1, 2007 3:14 AM
Cool, only problem now that you've published this is that some of those body modification freaks are going to take this idea and run with it. Show some social responsibility, Please!
Posted by: Brian Macker | September 1, 2007 8:16 AM
Here's a youtube video on the creature.
Posted by: Brian Macker | September 1, 2007 9:44 AM
Well, at least the eye isn't brown
Posted by: Just Al | September 1, 2007 1:40 PM
See, atheists can be smug about getting off lines like that because we know we won't burn in hell for them...
Anyway, Arbyn, here's a different version animated. Needs an appropriate sound effect, squeegee or balloon animal kinda thing, but MS Gif Animator doesn't offer that option.
And another, what I imagine actually happened.
Posted by: Just Al | September 1, 2007 1:45 PM
@ Brian Macker, thanks for that vid. Great stuff.
Posted by: Rich | September 1, 2007 6:25 PM
Awesome¡¡¡¡
Are common the circular-closing eyelids on cephalopods?
I guessed they haven´t any at all......
Posted by: Edgar | September 1, 2007 9:33 PM
Actually, the human iris contains a sphincter aswell.
Posted by: scj | September 1, 2007 11:38 PM
Yes, but humans have the decency to keep it on the inside. ;-)
Posted by: SEF | September 2, 2007 4:22 AM
That youtube video was cool! The sphincter is part of the animal's defense mechanism (providing the illusion of escaping the predator). Even cooler is that upon contact with a potential predator, the octopus releases glowing particles. Ummm... could those be precursors to star spawn?
Ia Ia Cthulhu Ftaghn!
Posted by: DustPuppyOI | September 8, 2007 11:15 PM
I think it's cool that both PZ and Schnier on security are into cephalopods. Schnier had a great sculpture robot of a squid recently. Mind you he also had a recipe for squid. Is this squid really that colour tho' or has it been enhanced?
Posted by: yoyo | September 9, 2007 10:25 PM
Another video about them
Posted by: natalief | September 11, 2007 10:23 PM
OK, I'll get banned for this but...
"reverse goatse!"
Posted by: Freak1ta | September 20, 2007 8:52 PM
I love my Elder God overlords!
Posted by: Nicole | February 5, 2008 3:19 AM