Friday Cephalopod: I'm a sucker for the babes

i-8e61907453536159e9b12c65dd575482-argonauta.jpg
Clutch of Argonauta nodosa eggs and hatchlings

Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

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*wibbles at the cute*

they're almost as cute as parasitic bunny botflies!

(well, it's close - the cephalopodlets have the big cute eyes, the bunnybots have strokable silvery fur)

over at SciencePunk the plural of octopus has been queried. Can anyone confirm the correct term.

That is one of the cutest things I ever did see (well...aside from newly hatched chameleons)!

I realize all babies are supposed to have blue eyes, but just what is that incredibly pigmented spot? Is it an eye? I'm having trouble making heads or tentacles out of the pretty colors.

I went to the Minnesota Zoo yesterday, and it turns out they've got a baby two-spotted octopus there... *gets glassy eyed*

By YuppiTuna (not verified) on 08 Dec 2006 #permalink

The plural of octopus: take your pick:

Octopuses - plain old English, as is perfectly appropriate for a borrowed word (compare troikas (not troiki) or raccoons (not whatever the Algonquian would be))
Octopodes - correct plural for the Greek original
Octopi - incorrect plural, would be correct were octopus a Latin word (which it's not), but then even Romans got it wrong sometimes

what is that incredibly pigmented spot?

Perhaps it's baby's first ink in its ink sac

Ah, thanks Ridger.