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Monday, October 27, 2008

Drive My Car Into the Ocean

Meet Helicocranchia pfefferi, the so-called “piglet squid.”

courtesy of zooillogix.com

And here is a second view of the creature, looking slightly more piglet-ish. (Believe it or not, these are the same species, though the one below may actually be a subspecies: the banded piglet squid.)


As you can see, its common name is no misnomer in either case. This living water balloon’s tentacles and arms look more than a little like yarny, cartoony hair, a row of chromatophores below looks like a smile, and its siphon looks a bit like a snout. (At least I think it’s the siphon I’m seeing above the “smile.”) I’m guessing its discoverers named it after the small “p” piglet and not the A.A. Milne character — even if the second example looks more like a certain effeminate porcine resident of the Hundred Acre Woods. And that’s too bad, really, because the capital “P” piglet squid would have made a good playmate for the Dumbo octopus.


And then, of course, no one wants to play with the blobfish.


(Piglet squid info from Zooillogix, via Boing Boing)

3 comments:

  1. Your write, without question, the weirdest blog on the entire world wide web.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please defend statement. Like, seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Also, was it the squiglet that pushed you over the edge? Because the Of Montreal video was pretty fucking weird. Is there a points system involved? A panel of judges?

    ReplyDelete