From the makers of the Blue-Ringed Octopus...

Why is it called a squid when it quite obviously looks like a cuttlefish?

Cool! I love cephalopods.

The Southern Dumpling Squid can be quite colorful.

Well, hello. I mean, why would you do space opera without tentacle aliens? I thought that was the whole point.

It looks very cuddly, as octopuses (octopi? octopodes?) so often do. No doubt this is part of its nefarious wiles.

*rereads the entry*

...wow, but my reading comprehension is low today. Squid, then. It's still a very cuddly squid.

dirty coppers! You'll never take me alive, see?

Been watching PBS again, eh?

Your TiVo is Wise.

It was a great program.

Are those cuddly striped pyjama squids both sleeping on the sea bed? Their eyes look heavy-lidded if not entirely shut.

Woooah. I want a stuffed animal of that!

Have you heard of firefly squid, also called sparkling Enope squid (Watasenia scintillans in either case)?

Impressive at the surface they are even cooler when in the twilight benthic zone they live in. They also have a double-layered retina and are, as far as is known, the only cephalopod that sees in color.

And of course my ultra-fave, Vampyroteuthus infernalis, the vampire squid. Deep-sea, baybee. Completely covered in photophores, which they can manipulate at will. They also manage to breathe oxygen in the OMZ (where oxygen levels are usually around 3%, go team hyperefficient hemocyanin!), eject bioluminescent ink from their arm-tips when attacked or frightened, and they have earflaps.

That....is just way cool.

I love cephalopods! (and only partially because anything that has a name that translates to "head-foot" has to be cool!)

Cephalopod aliens are awesome. They don't show up nearly often enough.

Cute! I want one.

Ooh, cute sleepy-looking squiddy! Makes me want a plushy of one. And yes, you should totally have cuttlefish aliens.

Mollusks are the wave of the future. Maybe not terrestrially, but as soon as they figure out the whole lifespan thing, they'll take over.

*cue twilight zone music*

So I was reading this while the DHM & Kids were watching a PBS special on cuttlefish. We had just finished the bit on the flamboyant cuttlefish, which is such a great secret-agent name I put it on my blog.

Synchronicity, thy name is writing...

I learned about the flamboyant cuttlefish on PBS earlier tonight. Apparently, it's cuttle is so small, it crawls better than it swims.

That is the cutest thing I've seen in weeks. I just want to give it a big orange bow and teach it to say "Ia! Ia! Cthulu Fthagn!"

(finally, something for which my tentacles icon is on topic!)

Oh, it's gorgeous!

Like a fool, I watched NCIS tonight instead of the beautiful PBS show on cuttlefish, DANG, because CBS was coming in weird and I was afraid it wouldn't tape right. Blast! But it'll rerun. They are sooooo beautiful.

Aw, cute squid! :^D It would be cool if that came in a stuffed toy version. Then kids could cuddle their matching pyjama squids at bedtime!

Please please please say that they'll begin worshipping Cthulhu when they hear of Him from humans...

I will look forward to your aliens. :-)

Cephalopods rock--and they're smart (smarter than I am, anyway). Did you hear about the octopus that was breaking out of its tank in the aquarium, eating the other exhibits, and then sneaking back home before the show opened in the morning? I love that story.

Cephalopods are simultaneously way cool and scary as fuck. There is a major intelligence in there and they are letting on about half of it. The rest we'll figure out when we stumble across one of their undersea cities. No, not R'lyeh. Tentacopolis or Squidonia (not to be confused with Squeeedonia).

I'm going to pretend my students are squid today. That ought to teach them.

Squidonia: If you lived here, you'd be home by now. And... underwater.