Friday Cephalopod: Piglet!
Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: September 28, 2007 9:15 AM, by PZ Myers

Helicocranchia sp.
Figure from The Deep(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Claire Nouvian.
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Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: September 28, 2007 9:15 AM, by PZ Myers

Figure from The Deep(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Claire Nouvian.
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Comments
Posted by: American Scot | September 28, 2007 9:35 AM
It does look like a piglet! Pretty cool!
Posted by: Rudi Tapper | September 28, 2007 9:46 AM
Moomins ARE real! I always knew!
Posted by: windy | September 28, 2007 9:50 AM
That's no piglet, that's Moomintroll! Or possibly his girlfriend.
Posted by: Brigit | September 28, 2007 9:57 AM
The poor baby needs some cuddles. Come here little crowned piggy, cuddle cuddle time!
Posted by: Jsn | September 28, 2007 10:00 AM
Once I found my monocle (after losing it in my shocked reaction to all that sports blather, evidently), I see it's quite Seussian. Horton hears a Heliocrank, perhaps?
Oh, BTW MFs, GO COWBOYS!
Posted by: gg | September 28, 2007 10:19 AM
I didn't know that Jim Henson's company did cephalopods...
#3: "That's no piglet, that's Moomintroll!"
Holy crap, you just hit me with this intense childhood flashback...
Posted by: SEF | September 28, 2007 10:24 AM
As piglets go, it's lacking any legs and having a bad "hair" day. As a putative moomintroll, it probably has more credibility but is still lacking legs.
Posted by: Alison | September 28, 2007 10:40 AM
That has to be one of the cutest cephalopods I've ever seen! Can you teach it to do tricks? ;-)
Posted by: David Marjanović | September 28, 2007 10:50 AM
I'm stunned.
Let me just repeat comment 4.
Posted by: Diego | September 28, 2007 10:55 AM
I think it's Helicocranchia not Heliocranchia.
Posted by: Sili | September 28, 2007 11:07 AM
The proper response to this is of course
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Posted by: Kseniya | September 28, 2007 11:14 AM
That is SO awesome. The "hair" is beyond belief.
LOL @ Moomins, but (though I hestitate to offer this glimpse into my diseased mind) the first thing that skittered through my head was that this was a frame from an animated clip documenting "the intrepid little time-release gelcap's trip through the digestive system."
Posted by: Kseniya | September 28, 2007 11:19 AM
Oh by the way, I suspect the pic is upside-down, a view that greatly enhances its cuteness. I dl'd the pic and rotated it 180 degrees, and the effect is quite sinister.
This creature rocks in ANY orientation. :-)
Posted by: Kseniya | September 28, 2007 11:21 AM
Errr... maybe not.
Posted by: John Marley | September 28, 2007 12:18 PM
Flip the picture upside-down and it looks like a cute-but-vaguely-sinister Cthulu.
Posted by: John Marley | September 28, 2007 12:29 PM
Kseniya beat me to it.
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | September 28, 2007 1:35 PM
A planet where squids evolved from Fraggles?!?!?!
Posted by: BruceJ | September 28, 2007 2:44 PM
Somewhat OT, but I went to my mailbox yesterday and the cover of this month's Smithsonian Magazine is familiar...and is impossibly cute...
Posted by: Puddock | September 28, 2007 3:07 PM
That is the cutest thing I've seen in a long while!
Amazing pictures, amazing creatures...what a wonderful world we live in.
Posted by: ElJay | September 28, 2007 3:40 PM
I have to ask,does anyone know if these are these as yummy to eat as regular calamari are?
Posted by: Brigit | September 28, 2007 4:05 PM
It does look like a Fraggle! That makes him even more cute, come heeere little sweetie pie!
Posted by: octopod | September 28, 2007 4:49 PM
AWW! PZ, I thought you disapproved of supercute cephalopods. Upside-down, it looks like a chubby transparent cartoon walrus!
Posted by: Don Quijote | September 28, 2007 5:13 PM
The little fellow on the picture is really cute. I hope we get to see Eeyore next week.
Posted by: mommyrex | September 28, 2007 9:06 PM
It's like a cartoon manatee with a Las Vegas showgirl headdress. Awesome!
Posted by: erimo | September 29, 2007 1:45 AM
Reminds me of "sea pigs", sea cucumbers that live in the deep ocean. Dare I say they are even cuter?
Posted by: Jonathan | September 29, 2007 12:55 PM
Next time Disney says it can't feature invertebrates...
Posted by: Geta | September 30, 2007 7:09 PM
No you may not say so, erimo. Just no..
Yes, something Fraggleish, yes! Cutest squiddie ever! Squee.