Friday Cephalopod?

I'm suspicious. There may be cephalopod imposters lurking about today.

i-1d1b99a980b60e98de9e40769b02a822-xavia.jpg
Xavia

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Cute as hell!

Okay, I'm not usually one for the K-3 crowd, but I gotta admit: that's pretty frickin' adorable.

At what age can she start feeding on her human minions?

By Janine ID AKA … (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

In a diabetic coma. That is too cute.

By Ignorant Atheist (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

I for one welcome this cephalopod overlord.

Awwwww... and I'm not one of those people who goes around cooing at babies or really associating with non-adult humans (beyond giving out candy at Halloween). But so far that's the cutest slimy critter you've posted today (even cuter than the smiling embryo triplets).

All at once now: AWWWWWWWW!!

By NIRVANA41 (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Damn it! I come to Pharyngula specifically to NOT trick my ovaries into wanting babies! Grr!

By Rebecca C. (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Oh, how absolutely ADORABLE! I'm sorry, PZ, but this is the cutest cephalopod I've ever seen. It even tops the cute little lab squid.

By KillerChihuahua (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

So is she related to you...?

By NIRVANA41 (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Now I understand the true power of our new overlords. Who could resist that smile?

Okay, somehow I gotta share.

My wife decided to dress up as Sarah Palin. Went to Marshall's to buy a business suit; got a beehive and had it customized by her sister-in-law, and now the bangs bobble when she blinks her eyes; lapel pins; the whole nine yards.

Spittin' image.

Complete turnoff. I want my wife back.

I'll try and send you the image. Can't make any promises. But frankly, she wins. Everyone else, you can quit trying now. Resistance is futile.

Bah! "Xavia" isn't even a proper Linnaean binomial!!

Xavia pseudocephalopodans?

Xavia adorabellans?

And is there a cladist in the house? Where does this organism actually belong?!?!*

___________________________________
* I know, I know... with her mommy.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

its the dreaded Octopus Adoranda

Its suckers are loaded with highly toxic "cute"

By The Petey (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

My wife got a little black spider costume kind of like that for our 23 month old daughter. Maybe I'll link a pic tomorrow... but she's often too fast for the auto focus and exposure metering lag of our digital camera, resulting in many images of the back of her head.

Ah! Take that Creationists, we've found the "missing link". And it's a cute one.

Proof of evolution!

Surely this highly-developed camouflage will serve it well in infiltrating the Myers habitat.

By Bren Finan (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

I'm totally getting my niece one when she's older (only two months now). And yeah, I like kids. Shoot me.

"Damn it! I come to Pharyngula specifically to NOT trick my ovaries into wanting babies! Grr!"

Just think of how much trouble it must have been getting her to put that thing on and you should be fine. Just remember, there only cute when your not the one cleaning up after them.

Absolutely adorable! I'm now totally regretting allowing my husband to talk me out of dressing up our 2 year old because he is "too young for that sort of stuff". :((

Thats fricken adorable!

Will there be a poem? Please, please, with sugar on top?

(Cuttlefish may be published soon, and I will buy the book.)

By ThirtyFiveUp (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

*gasp*
I absolutely love kids (yes, I actually can handle a screaming bunch of them) and this one is extraordinarily cute! Makes me want to hug and cuddle some cephalopods.

Just remember, there (sic) only cute when your (sic) not the one cleaning up after them.

Wanna hear some stories?

Eh, never mind. Mine are 11 and 14; I could write a book. Course, no one would buy it.

(Sorry about the sics...)

Okay, she's just adorable!

The Elder Gods have finally woken...and they're a lot smaller and cuter than we expected.

By Sabazinus (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Imagine my delight when I got her down for a nap and went downstairs for my Pharyngula fix...

As soon as we saw that costume, I was thinking Friday Cephalopod all the way. When I found out Halloween was on a Friday, we couldn't resist submitting it.

She's smart and curious. Might be the REAL scientist in the family.

A lot of people told us that when she was born we'd get religion. Not so. I did get a sense of peace about my own mortality, since I'd be making way for this little one.

Thanks for posting it, PZ. Glad the rest of the community enjoyed it as well.

By Xavia's Dad (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

ThirtyFiveUp said:

Will there be a poem? Please, please, with sugar on top?
(Cuttlefish may be published soon, and I will buy the book.)

+1, certainly on the "Buy".

By KillerChihuahua (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

She is so cute!

I did get a sense of peace about my own mortality, since I'd be making way for this little one.

I don't see this mentioned very often, but I found that to be one of the excellent side effects of parenthood, too.

That is a fantastic costume, and she is extremely cute. The weirdest costume I ever made for one of my kids (back when they were too young to protest) was also aquatic: it involved a paper mache oyster shell and dressing the 18-month old all in white and sticking him inside (he was a pearl). My husband had a great time lugging him around the neighborhood, and I was banished from costume-design projects for awhile.

I sense an opportunity for the advancement of science education, general knowledge of evolution, and.............profit! For Halloween next year someone should produce a line of taxonomically correct costumes. Obviously some could be cute like this, others could be more realistic. What 9yr old boy wouldn't want to be dressed as a thoroughly scary trilobite? Either in stores or online, the costumes would be sorted by phylum. Schools could be asked to participate- the kiddies could learn about cladistics while having fun at the party.

Or maybe not. (I distictly remember dressing as a tiger one year, and a leopard the next. Costumes homemade by mom. In first grade, I dressed as a rocket. Apollo 6 1/4. (corresponding to my age. That was in 1970, so it was current.))

That might be the cutest Halloween picture I've ever seen.

I gotta get me one of those.
What do you feed them?

Cthulhu is a lot cuter than I expected.

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

ggab: "I gotta get me one of those.
What do you feed them?"

Kids, obviously. The legs from the last meal are still sticking out.

Such a cutie! Beats the dolphin and Shamu costumes I made for my son when he was 5 and 6. Or the Southwest Airlines jet I made for him when he was 4. He knocked over a bunch of things at school with his wingspan...

By Slaughter (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Remember, no Calimari jokes!

First one to make a calimari reference gets disemvoweled. Let's see if this gets the anticipated result.

By JohnnieCanuck, FCD (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Cute? wait till it grows up and take over the world.

By Chiaroscuro (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

The Elder Gods have finally woken...and they're a lot smaller and cuter than we expected.
Sabazinus | October 31, 2008 1:24 PM

You never read Ghastly's, did you?

Cute, indeed! (And I hate kids. Even with spuds, gravy, cowberries and Waldorf salad). Even beats this little vertebrate.

@35: That octopus story is awesome. Don't miss it, everybody.

@Chiaroscuro:

That's strange... you make it sound as if that would *detract* from the cuteness.

To each their aesthetics, I suppose.

By Steve in MI, Sfs/PZM (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Bravo to the costumer who made this. Great work.

-jcr

By John C. Randolph (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Brad D #18, Try it with a DSLR, much less shutter lag. And you'll need the fast response when those tentacles start whipping.

What a stinkin' cute kid. It slightly makes me want to have a kid so I can dress him/her up in cute costumes. I remember when my mom made a dinosaur costume for me when I was little, best thing ever. Happy Halloween everyone!!

That's adorable!

OT: It also reminds me that last week in the largest residence on my university campus, some people stuffed octopi down the toilets for a prank. Two octopi. (sometimes my campus does weird things. This beats lobsters in the showers though).

By kitsunerei88 (not verified) on 31 Oct 2008 #permalink

Gasp!

It's got a muscular foot and a mantle, but a dorsal nerve chord, vertebrae, and corneal inverted-retina eyes with c-opsin photoreceptors! It's a true chimera that could only have arisen through intelligent design (and sewing)!

This. . . thing. . . this. . . abomination unto Darwin the Father, Dawkins the Son, and Hitchens the unholy spirit. . . .

Quick! We must hide the evidence to maintain the evolutionist conspiracy! Take down the blog post! Burn the pictures! Bribe the family to move to Cancun. . . .

They certainly are masters of camouflage, aren't they?

Cute AND she's probably more qualified to be V.P. than some other person...

What a sweetie doll!

sweet baby !!