You've got to be impressed with the cephalopod-butchering skills of this dolphin. Especially be sure to check out the gallery of grisly photos.
I know, I like cephalopods. But I eat them, too!
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You've got to be impressed with the cephalopod-butchering skills of this dolphin. Especially be sure to check out the gallery of grisly photos.
I know, I like cephalopods. But I eat them, too!
Ugh, I have been wondering what happened to our cuttlefish, and now *sniff* I know.... :-(
Oh no. Not OUR Poet Laureate Cuttlefish?!?!?!
Ha! Suck it, non-Australian dolphins.
Given that it's New Scientist, it's probably misreported.
Wow, that's pretty impressive. A lot of work too, and puts my 'laborious' breakfast routine into perspective. I guess I should stop whining to myself now about how much effort it will take to walk to my laboratory's kitchen to boil some water for my oatmeal.
Is the "shaking of the cuttlefish" step skipped if it releases its ink prior to death?
Should we be sending traffic to the New Scientist website?
Ahem.
Etc.
Cetacean vs. cephalopod, cetacean wins! This makes Happy Cetacean happy.
Noooooooo! Leave Cuttlefish alone. I like his poetry. :)
Hmph. "Perfect Cuttlefish Meal" indeed. I can think of plenty better meals for this cuttlefish...
A dolphin may wish
For a cuttlefish dish
In the waters with old Davy Jones;
See, they find cuttlefishes
Are truly delicious
Except for the cuttlefish bones.
They also may think
That the cuttlefish ink
Is unpleasant, or nasty, or mean;
We infer this because
In a Gulf in South Oz
They’ve developed a dolphin cuisine!
[more at http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/01/perfect-cuttlefish-meal-o…]
Dang. I see Blake beat me to it.
Don't send traffic to New Scientist! Send those pageviews to the Cuttlefish instead!
Oh, dolphins, is there anything your marvelous nimble snouts can’t poke?
Slightly related: is it cruel to kill shellfish by boiling it? Do they suffer?
Does anyone know good resources on dolphin intelligence? How do they stack up against our ancestors in terms of intelligence? I would really appreciate any pointers!
Lotharloo @15,
Does anyone know good resources on dolphin intelligence?
Here, this might be a good place to start your reading.
Ha! It even made the front page on the website of Australi's best newspaper :-)
http://www.smh.com.au/
Are crayfish counted as shellfish, cause they don't seem to enjoy it!
Expect to see a video from Ray Comfort on how the dolphin's snout was perfectly designed to eviscerate cuttlefish :p
Mrs Tilton:
Right.
Very funny.
EL O EL.
AR O EF EL.
^^ So long and thanks for all the fish?
I don't know of evidence to the contrary...
Hmm, something I didn't know. Cuttlefish have bones? Never thought of cephalapods as having internal bones, learn something new everyday....
"Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet".
Cuttlefish control thousands of chromatophores .
Mollusks have ganglia and nerves.
If your definition of pain is associated with a central nervous system alone, sure they suffer.
If your definition of pain is associated with regulation by a cerebral cortex and limbic system then no.
I suppose the answer is they hurt but not the same way you and I do. So sympathy is probably better directed at the dolphin (or PZ) finding something delicious than the cuttlefish having a bad day.
J.D.
Not exactly bone in the skeletal sense. I think more of a rigid, porous flotation device. They wash up on the beaches all around S.A. and are often used as chew toys? for parrots and the like. We used to collect them and crumble them into our chicken feed as a calcium source.
It's not really a "bone." It's an internalized shell homologue, made of calcium carbonate instead of phosphate. They used to sell them at pet shops for parakeets to mutilate. Calcium supplement, I guess.
Slightly related: is it cruel to kill shellfish by boiling it? Do they suffer?
If you mean clams and other bivalves, they don't have anything we'd call a brain, just a few ganglia, so probably their capacity for suffering is limited (but maybe that's just our brain-chauvinist assumption). But boiling is not necessarily crueler than other ways of killing them.
Mrs Tilton, RE: The Onion link.
You might remember the kid who actually used echolocation. While looking for the news piece I came across a whole documentary made about him. Sadly, I also learned he just died a few days ago.
Next, I'd like to see octopuses killing and eating nurse sharks.
Not so much for reciprocity, as that cephalopod abilities seem more strange than even the deft tactics of the dolphin preparing the cuttlefish for ingestion.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
As a journalist (yeah, I know you all hate me), I'd like to thank you for spelling grisly correctly. Honestly, it's right up there with accommodate, supersede and minuscule among words virtually everyone misspells (add "misspell")
How many of you could honestly say you could correctly spell those words?
I await your wrath.
Actually, thanks littlejohn. I enjoyed your post.
I'm not the speller I used to be. To much exposure to incorrect spelling in the print media. Or so I tell myself. Ongoing loss of memory cells might be more accurate.
Not wrath, really, just pity. As Andrew Jackson said, "It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.'
Not wrath, really, just pity. As Andrew Jackson said, "It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.'
littlejohn@31
You're not alone and I don't hate you. I'm also one of those spelling obsessives whom non-pedants regard with contempt. In fact, I once sent a finger-wagging letter to the editor of my small town newspaper for describing a local discovery as "grizzly". Funny enough, that letter never appeared on the op/eds...
I get my comeuppance often though, because of my terrible typing skillz. Yes, yes; that's it. It's poor typing!
Poor spelling is my bête noire and I know it's superficial of me but I can't help it. So I'm right up there with you pedants; not that I'd go defacing historical signs or anything...
BTW, I'm SO glad we're back to anonymous commenting!
Hugh M.: And note that in the final drawing the cuttlebone is in fact shown floating up towards the sea's surface...
Cool. I didn't know that cuttlebone was such a flexible buoyancy-control organ. See if this link works; or else feed "cuttlebone float" to the google, find p 247 of Jurd's "Instant Notes in Animal Biology" via google books, and read the last full paragraph; very cool. It's not clear to me, though, how the spaces within the "bone" get filled with gaseous nitrogen. Schmidt-Nielsen probably talks about it someplace.
The six-step procedure gets rid of the invertebrate's unappetising ink
Proof that those dolphins aren't that smart.
Oh, dolphins, is there anything your marvelous nimble snouts can’t poke?
Whew, RamblinDude, I was afraid your link would be more like this:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/06/04/uk.dolphin/index.html
De gustibus non est disputandum, Lurker.
Since I am erudite to the point of being pedantic, I can speel the english gooder then most peepul.
As long as you're pronouncing it as if it were spelled 'roth' (like the actor Tim, the writer Philip, the screenwriter Eric or the director Eli) and not as if it rhymes with 'math'.
nom nom nom
i iz finished
u can has teh cuttlebone
This just in from Ingrid Newkirk... Cephalopods are now called "Sea Bunnies".
How do you feel about eating them now PZ?
A cuttlefish is a ctenophore is a polychaete is a boy.
The foray into "how did they figure out how to do that?' is pertinent, but I'm hardly suprised. Lot's of critters (crows, parrots, octopi) have problem solving skills.
This is conjecture, but I would think this trick is "common knowledge". I'll bet that cuttlebone doesn't go through cooperatively.
accommodate, miniscule, success, pertinent, existence
grisly=fail
grisly=me fail
Cannibal.
Littlejohn
^^ Does it still count as a misspelling if I recognise the mistake and correct it with a dictionary?
Sven
Thank you, that's an interesting link. I had noticed that the one end had a brownish stain, but had not known why. Excellent.
Lurker
^^ For a moment there, I thought that was a link to Freddy the friendly dolphin.
Imho,meh sezz noes.
I've only caught cephalopods to eat on one ocasion. I rolled them in a mixture of flour and cornmeal and fried them up in hot lard. I'd like to see dolphin duplicate that feat!
On dolphin intelligence. There is a science fiction story where advanced aliens visit earth. They are pleasant and congenial, but they are actually here to visit the dolphins.
Uh-oh. This might be a sign before the "so long, and thanks for all the fish" bit. Anybody see any big yellow spaceships lately?
Appearing with a bang that drove your ears six feet into your skull?
The dolphin exemplifies the level of skill that I, and, I am sure all of you, seek to obtain. I work with simple tools, primarily my limbs and manipulating parts, to extract from my surroundings something of value. While the dolphin does it for individual survival (and so do I, as a matter of necessity), the use of inherent talent and learned skills is a good bet, for cetaceans and humans and all those other critters too.
Well, at least my customers appreciate my talents, and the fact that I don't eviscerate and eat them. I try to leave them happier than they were before. Does that make me like Jesus?
Actually Littlejohn those are easy, especially accommodate since it has to accommodate two double letters. But then I was a spelling prodigy in my yoof.
Actually Littlejohn those are easy, especially accommodate since it has to accommodate two double letters. But then I was a spelling prodigy in my yoof.
Actually Littlejohn those are easy, especially accommodate since it has to accommodate two double letters. But then I was a spelling prodigy in my yoof.
If you mean lobster or crab, sticking them in the freezer is the way to go. If you're going to split a lobster, say for grilling, then about 30 mins should "anesthetize" the bug. Take it out and if there's no movement, quickly split it head end first. If you're going to boil or steam, leave it in the freezer for closer to an hour to ensure it doesn't become responsive before death.
Pain? Suffering? First, that would probably require a discussion settling on a definition of "pain". Second, you'll get debate on both sides. The lobster industry will cite studies that conclude the nervous systems are far too simple. PETA will provide some that equate every boiling with the torment Jeanne D'Arc or Giordano Bruno felt. It's doubtfully going to be anything like what we would experience as "suffering", but it'll certainly register as a negative stimulus to be escaped or avoided.
Regardless, pain or negative stimulus... the kindest thing would be to render them insensible with some time in the freezer before they go under the knife or in the pot.
Ugh, "bugs" is exactly right. I call hypocrite anyone who eats sea crustaceans, but are not even willing to try insects. Or at least land crustaceans. Hypocrites, I say!
Mmmmmm... cephalofood. http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/01/giant_squid_cake.html?CMP=OTC…
Lurker,
That's no snout.
I like Ragutis's advice. All studies of which I'm aware suggest that cold knocks out neural synapses first. No synaptic transmission, nothing even analogous to "pain."
Andyo @60: Irrational squickedness=/= hypocrisy. It would only be hypocrisy if they asserted that others should eat no insects.
I don't see why any living creature should be killed and
eaten Why can't they be left alone They are not harming
you It is very selfish and is not necessary
There is plenty of plant life on this planet which is
more than enough for any person to eat
Animals should be respected and not abused or used
in any way
think more of a rigid, porous flotation device