Friday Cephalopod: Toothy! : Pharyngula

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Friday Cephalopod: Toothy!

Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Posted on: November 9, 2007 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers

Promachoteuthis sulcus

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Comments

Posted by: Carlie | November 9, 2007 6:13 AM

That has to be the most disturbing cephalopicture you've ever posted. Now I'm going to have nightmares.

Posted by: Onycophora | November 9, 2007 6:26 AM

Absolutely terrifying. There seems to be just enough room for it to bite off a toe...

Posted by: Nick Sullivan | November 9, 2007 6:28 AM

Wow, so the beck structure has evolved to produce something akin to vertebrate teeth? Neat example of convergent evolution and I'm guessing this one has a taste for shellfish.

Posted by: haegar | November 9, 2007 6:43 AM

Is it real or photoshopped?

Posted by: DrJ | November 9, 2007 6:53 AM

That has to be the coolest thing I have EVER seen. It´s a Lovecraftian reality.

I think I´m in love.

Posted by: cyan | November 9, 2007 6:57 AM

This photo is at the Tree of Life website and is attributed to Richard Young at the University of Hawaii.

Its so bizarre that I just sent him an email, hoping that he will verify that this is an unretouched photo.

Posted by: ajay | November 9, 2007 6:58 AM

It looks like it's singing.

Posted by: Goatboy | November 9, 2007 7:21 AM

Suddenly my fetishitic dream, of being fellated by a Dalek, seems somewhat less far fetched.

Posted by: astromcnaught | November 9, 2007 7:24 AM

Hooray! It's Friday, and my, what big teeth it has!

#10

Posted by: bernarda | November 9, 2007 7:29 AM

I just discovered this BBC program: Walking with Monsters, Life before Dinosaurs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faGA_5rEXl8

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other-extinct-creatures/031205walkingwithmonsters/bbc-walking-with-monsters-life-before-dinosaurs.html

#11

Posted by: Christophe Thill | November 9, 2007 7:31 AM

Thanks for introducing a moment of pure weirdness into my otherwise ordinary working day...

#12

Posted by: John Phillips | November 9, 2007 7:43 AM

I really love the cephalod beauties you usually display on a Friday, but that one is simply way cooool.

#13

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 9, 2007 7:53 AM

Is this a beak with thin dark stripes...?

#14

Posted by: Sampo Rassi | November 9, 2007 8:26 AM

I can just see this cheery thing swimming along the deep, making "chompchompchompchomp" sounds. It's Undersea Pacman!

#15

Posted by: gg | November 9, 2007 8:38 AM

ajay wrote: "It looks like it's singing."

When I saw the picture, I immediately started humming to myself, "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal!"

#16

Posted by: Ted D | November 9, 2007 8:43 AM

Y'golonac?

#17

Posted by: demallien | November 9, 2007 8:46 AM

What is it with all the multi-appendaged cephalopods recently (i mean, more multi-appendaged than usual). I thought they were supposed to have 8, not 10! What are the two that don't have suckers for?

#18

Posted by: MBL | November 9, 2007 8:59 AM

If that appeared anywhere other than here, I'd be certain it was a Photoshop job. Since it's here, I'm only pretty sure it's a Photoshop job.

Either way, brrrrrr. :-)

#19

Posted by: Mycelium72 | November 9, 2007 9:03 AM

Its real, it showed up a while ago on Deep Sea News. Those are not actual teeth, they just appear as such.

This link explains:

http://tolweb.org/Promachoteuthis_sulcus/19531/2007.05.30

#20

Posted by: King Aardvark | November 9, 2007 9:16 AM

Hmmm. Looks a lot like my uncle.

#21

Posted by: Boosterz | November 9, 2007 9:18 AM

Oh crap, Daleks! Everbody back in the Tardis!.

#22

Posted by: shpx.ohfu | November 9, 2007 9:29 AM

Antecedent image.

#23

Posted by: Humble Woodcutter | November 9, 2007 9:46 AM

So, the headless parasitic twin is upside down, fused at the spine...and developed teeth, along with the extra limbs...I get it...

#24

Posted by: shpx.ohfu | November 9, 2007 9:47 AM

Big brother.

#25

Posted by: Dan | November 9, 2007 9:48 AM

Man... That thing's gonna give me nightmares. Then again, it looks like it's singing showtunes, so how scary can it be?

#26

Posted by: shpx.ohfu | November 9, 2007 9:49 AM

My #22 was posted here in error - too many tabs open. Sorry.

#27

Posted by: Cuttlefish | November 9, 2007 9:59 AM

Though these pictures I've often enjoyed
That's a mouth that I'd rather avoid;
It brings the maligned
V. Dentata to mind
(Look it up--it's right there, under "Freud").

#28

Posted by: Moses | November 9, 2007 10:02 AM

Oh, crap. I'm not a big octopus fan, but most of them at least don't creep me out. However, I saw this photo the other day, can't remember where, and I have to say that I absolutely HATE this particular Octopus.

It's so freaky looking with those human-like teeth. And I wasn't entirely sure if it was a spoof.

Now I'm even more creeped out. Thanks.

#29

Posted by: Michael | November 9, 2007 10:02 AM

demallien, you're thinking of Octopi. Octopi have 8 apendages. Sqauids can have ten to twelve apendages. Nautilus can have quite a bit more, but I'm not even going to guess at that one. Anyway, hope that answers your comment, and if I'm in anyway mistaken on any of this please call me on it, I'm certainly no expert on the subject. I just think cephlapods are cool

#30

Posted by: quork | November 9, 2007 10:20 AM

Padma Lakshmi loves cephalopods.

#31

Posted by: Jerry D. Harris | November 9, 2007 10:23 AM

That ain't nuthin'...you want Photoshopped "animals," check out:

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?start=1&end=10&contest_id=6076&display=photoshop (and all the others in the pull-down menu there)

and

http://www.funpic.hu/funblog/allatok/allatok.html

(Great for throwing students off in evolution classes!)

#32

Posted by: John Danley | November 9, 2007 10:27 AM

Just perfect for a LeFort 1 osteotemy of the lower mandible to correct his craniofacial dysmorphism.

#33

Posted by: Jsn | November 9, 2007 10:32 AM

Is it just me or does this remind anyone of "Clutch Cargo" ?

(I know someone's going to come up with a great vagina dentata joke.)

Any animators out there? A cephalopod version of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" introduction could be kinda cool...

#34

Posted by: Jsn | November 9, 2007 10:33 AM

Opps, sorry Cuttlefish, I missed your post. Brilliant as ever.

#35

Posted by: Stevie_C | November 9, 2007 10:38 AM

Reminnds me of something from a David Cronenberg movie.

I expect it to start talking and sounding like Burroughs.

#36

Posted by: Rodney Anonymous | November 9, 2007 10:45 AM

I...need...a...hug [weeps openly]

#37

Posted by: Tony | November 9, 2007 10:46 AM

Surely this is the unholy union between a memeber of the Osmonds family and a Octopus....you crazy scientists! Stop now before its too late!

#38

Posted by: valiantmauz | November 9, 2007 11:02 AM

Though these pictures I've often enjoyed That's a mouth that I'd rather avoid; It brings the maligned V. Dentata to mind (Look it up--it's right there, under "Freud").

Oh. That was very good.

#39

Posted by: Todd | November 9, 2007 11:11 AM

Goatboy #8 - that was the best laugh I had all day.

Unfortunately, according to the TOL website, this is the only known specimen and it's just 25 mm long so unless they grow bigger you're in for some disappointment.

#40

Posted by: Brownian, OM | November 9, 2007 11:21 AM

Feed me, ~~Seymour~~ PZ!

#41

Posted by: noncarborundum | November 9, 2007 11:30 AM

Friday Cephalopod: Toothy!

Also toothsome. Mmmmm.

#42

Posted by: Goatboy | November 9, 2007 11:32 AM

Todd#38

Well, until science catches up with my Fantastic Voyage fantasies anyway.

Mmmm, Me, Raquel Welch, a Promachoteuthis sulcus, some white blood cells and Donald Pleasance.

There's an orgy to tell your grandkids about.

#43

Posted by: spike | November 9, 2007 11:45 AM

Here is an awesome glass Octopus, for the art lovers amongst you. Much Prettier without those horrible teeths.

#44

Posted by: Mark (Monty) Montague | November 9, 2007 12:15 PM

We discussed this a fair bit over on TONMO... Steve O'Shea got in a final word that it's an unusual buccal mass musculature, which was my suspicion since the TOLweb didn't mention anything weird about the mouth in the species description. See http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8276 for the whole thread.

And Michael, you're correct that squids (and cuttlefish) like this one have ten appendages (8 arms and 2 tentacles) but they never have twelve. There are a few species of squids that lose the tentacles at adulthood so they start with ten and go to 8. Nautilus does have a lot more, 40 I believe. For completeness, Vampyroteuthis infernalis has 8 arms and two "filaments" and extinct belemnites were squid-like and had 10 hooked arms. The paper PZ posted a few months ago about nautilus development suggested that nautilus arms are produced from 5 pairs of buds, so there's a lot of evidence that the 10 appendages is an ancestral trait and that octopus just lost one pair somewhere along the line. Interestingly, the pair modified to filaments in Vampyroteuthis are not the same ones modified to tentacles in the squid.

#45

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 9, 2007 12:21 PM

damn, Todd (#38) beat me to it, but still, these facts bear repeating:
1. This picture is of the only--single--specimen of this species ever seen
2. It's only one inch long.

And now, another attempt at the joke only I seem to appreciate:
Vagina radula

#46

Posted by: ildi | November 9, 2007 12:33 PM

Someone always beats me to the punch; I was going to make the Little Shop of Horrors reference!

#47

Posted by: aiabx | November 9, 2007 12:54 PM

That really creeped me out. At least until I read the "hello, my baby" comnment and the cuttlefish poem. One more nightmare defused.

#48

Posted by: Janine | November 9, 2007 12:55 PM

So nice to have the real Pharyngula back. Perhaps all of the trolls were scared off by the guard cephalopod. I would hate to have that thing grinning at me from a dark corner.

#49

Posted by: tsaari | November 9, 2007 12:59 PM

Yikes! I'm still having a difficult time believing this photo is genuine.

Creepy Friday jitters now, thanks.

#50

Posted by: Rey Fox | November 9, 2007 1:11 PM

#41: Sure, just leave out the Donald Pleasance part unless you want to give them nightmares.

#51

Posted by: Wrought | November 9, 2007 1:32 PM

Hmm. I think I might have dated her.

#52

Posted by: Frank Anderson | November 9, 2007 2:06 PM

It looks to me like the beak was just removed, but I checked the species description and there's nothing there about the beak of P. sulcus, so I have no idea what's going on. I actually was a reviewer for this paper and didn't notice the weirdness of that picture the first time around...

Someone mentioned they'd e-mailed Dick Young...what did he say?

#53

Posted by: Bill Dauphin | November 9, 2007 2:42 PM

Wow! A Cuttlefish limerick (with a v. dentata reference, no less!) and a Padma Lakshmi sighting!

Best.Thread.Evar!

Well, maybe that's stretching a point... but it is a refreshing change from the sniping and sockpuppetry going on in other threads recently. Y'all have a good weekend, y'hear?

#54

Posted by: Evan Rudderow | November 9, 2007 2:42 PM

PZ,

That is, like, so two weeks ago; if you want to be current, then check this out:

http://www.plantationhomeaccessories.com/fi-octreds.html

#55

Posted by: Buffybot | November 9, 2007 4:00 PM

It looks like there's a human trapped inside its body. What a horror. This shall be my new wallpaper.

#56

Posted by: Lurchgs | November 9, 2007 4:28 PM

Heh - I had a sequence of images zip through my mind when I first saw this.

1) Judy Garland singing "Over the Rainbow"

2) Feed me, Seymour!

3) Space Angels (Clutch Cargo in space. Not that you youngsters will remember either)

4) what a PERFECT sidekick for Rippy the Gator! (Arrogant Worms tune)

5) MOM!

#57

Posted by: Tlazolteotl | November 9, 2007 4:38 PM

You guys are freaking out over the vagina dentata, aren't you?

#58

Posted by: Bride of Shrek | November 9, 2007 4:40 PM

If it had a bit of bling on the tentacles it'd look just like Liberace.

#59

Posted by: Mark S. | November 9, 2007 5:14 PM

If ever a picture needed to be lolcatted, that's it.

#60

Posted by: Greta Christina | November 9, 2007 7:22 PM

Can't sleep! Squid'll eat me! Can't sleep! Squid'll eat me!

#61

Posted by: Kurt | November 9, 2007 11:03 PM

It's a langolier with tentacles!

#62

Posted by: Bride of Shrek | November 10, 2007 3:31 AM

I am absolutely, totally, completely positive that thing is singing "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific. Go on, scroll back up, have a look, tell me I'm imaging it!

#63

Posted by: Bride of Shrek | November 10, 2007 3:33 AM

Sorry - that should be "imagining it". I blame the 3 chardonnays for the typo but that could also explain my South Pacific theory.

#64

Posted by: cyan | November 10, 2007 8:40 AM

The photographer who took this photo, Richard Young (a biologist at the University of Hawaii), has just graciously answered my query to him about it:

"The photo has not been altered. The interpretation of what it shows has been incorrect. The squid doesn't have teeth. The structure that looks like teeth is a circular, wrinkled lip that surrounds the beaks. Only the top and bottom the the lips are visible in the photo and the beaks are underexposed (they are black) and don't show in the photo."

#65

Posted by: robhoofd | November 10, 2007 11:08 AM

Whatever the case, it still looks like the love child of Abraham Lincoln and a cephalopod.

#66

Posted by: Cuttlefish | November 10, 2007 9:34 PM

So the thing that we see is a sheath,
With the beaks tucked away underneath;
Not as strange as before
(And I think, what is more,
That lips are much nicer than teeth).

#67

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 14, 2007 12:42 PM

You guys are freaking out over the vagina dentata, aren't you?

Hey, did I try the vagina radula thing yet?
I did?
sorry...carry on...

#68

Posted by: Heather Kuhn | November 24, 2007 2:33 PM

More recent version of the page mentioned in #19.

#69

Posted by: SEF | December 23, 2007 6:47 AM

The lolcats site has belatedly caught on to this picture now - except they're saying they don't know its source. Is it worth someone telling them?