Friday Cephalopod: Colorful, and it glows!

I think I saw a woman with a dress in that pattern once ...

Each time you put up one of these pics, I get that much closer to hanging it up, selling the house, and moving to Australia from whence I can create a life-long research program on the cuttlefish et al.

Great picture! But.... "Southern Dumpling Squid"????? Where did that come from!?

Anyhow, more pics and a description at: http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/Etasmanica.php

Beautiful. Pharyngula's Friday Cephalopod is the first place I go when I open my computer on Friday, before James Randi, before the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

I daydream that some tentacled genetic line will develop language, but it will be visual, grammar flowing over their surface.

(Then, they'll call out to the Elder Gods. May we be first eaten.)

Uh, why is it looking at me like that? I don't eat calimari or anything.

Why does that octopus have spoilers?

Trully amazing what unguided forces, filtered by natural selection, are able to produce.

Skeptyk:

I daydream that some tentacled genetic line will develop language, but it will be visual, grammar flowing over their surface.

That's a hell of an interesting idea. And it could be a lovely little bit of SF storytelling work.

Ken MacLeod's Engines of Light trilogy features giant squid that pilot starships and communicate via their chromatophores.

I'm swooning here, and it's only partly because of ther bedroom eyes. Hey I'd wear a dress with that pattern, especially if it phosphoresced and changed colors. Damn, if the genemodders did it right, I'd have that for skin!

I think I saw a woman with a dress in that pattern once ...

I so wish. Chromatophores, melanophores, iridiophores, and leucophores, under conscious control? Sweet. I'd be able to actually try to talk to the cuttlefish at the aquarium, instead of just stupidly standing there, staying the same color the whole time. Do I get the bonus bioluminsecent Vibrio bacteria in little pouches near my face, too? Maybe that's on the hat that goes with.

I daydream that some tentacled genetic line will develop language, but it will be visual, grammar flowing over their surface.

The geeks who study cephalopods think you're not dreaming. Where "some" = cephs that live in brightly-lit places (like reefs), and are active when the sun is up (the ones that use their eyes a lot), and are social (at least part of the time). They tend to use color patterns and color changes a LOT in communicating. Mostly cuttlefish and some of the squids. So far we're too stupid to even eavesdrop much, let alone talk back.
Wait till I get that dress, though . . .
Now that would be a fun research program.

Why does that octopus have spoilers?

Um, 'cuz squid have fins. And two extra tentacles that octopods don't have. With vicious hooks and toothy suckerdisks in dense profusion. Even tiny little bobtail squid. Fear our cephalpod overlords!

Max said: "Ken MacLeod's Engines of Light trilogy..."
Steff said: "The geeks who study cephalopods think you're not dreaming."

Very cool. Thanks.