More Blogs with the name Tentacles

More blogs with the name tentacles in them that don't particularly feature tentacles. Continue to marvel!

Lucid tentacles test 'n sleeved

Alternative Tentacles (a cool record label)

Nuclear Tentacles (WARNING this one is depictions of nude female humans. NSFW. It's not even tentacle in nature - although as you may recall, this blog does not cover that, as I have pointed out before.)

Tentacle Music Fashion

All the cool kids wear tentacles - to artsy meetings that I attend.

Cinematic Tentacles

Originally at Tsutpen, a blog with a really long name and found by Max.

Too many and too few tentacles

"It is very rare in nature to find octopuses with extra tentacles, but in December 1998, a common octopus was captured in Matoya Bay, Japan, which had a whopping 96 tentacles.

The unusual octopus had the normal 8 appendages attached to the body, but each one of those branched out to form the extra tentacles. The specimen survived for five months after its capture, and even laid eggs, which hatched into normal 8 tentacled octopi. Upon its death, the 96-tentacled octopus was preserved and now remains on permanent display at the Shima Marineland Aquarium in Shima, Japan.

This was not the first instance of an over-tentacled octopus specimen being displayed in Japan...."

Read more - and see more photos! - at Cryptomundo.com

Looks like those guys should lend some of their extra tentacles to this guy...

Harryhausen producer Charles Schneer dies

Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:17am GMT

...Schneer had the idea of a making a film about a giant octopus that pulls down the Golden Gate Bridge and was introduced to Harryhausen by an Army friend. Harryhausen had honed his craft with Willis O'Brien, who, in the 1930s, was responsible for the most famous of all stop-motion creations, 1933's "King Kong."

Schneer and Harryhausen then made "It Came from Beneath the Sea," which gave Schneer his first credit as a producer. Keeping with Katzman's low-budget mantra, however, the film's octopus had only six tentacles instead of the customary eight.

As Harryhausen says in his autobiography "Film Fantasy Scrapbook": "Two tentacles less to build and animate during the long process of stop-motion photography did save quite a bit of time. And in Hollywood, time is money." ...

Read more at Reuters UK

Bloomy Tentacles

Jellyfish Swarms Invade Ecosystems out of Balance

ARLINGTON, Virginia, December 16, 2008 (ENS) - Jellyfish blooms are ruining some of the world's most beautiful vacation spots, according to a new online report by the National Science Foundation on massive jellyfish swarms in U.S. waters and around the world.

At least 150 million people around the world are exposed to jellyfish every year, the report says. Swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations into "jellytoriums" that are intermittently jammed with the pulsating, gelatinous creatures.

This is happening in U.S. waters from Hawaii to the Chesapeake Bay, where 500,000 people are stung by jellyfish every year.

Another 200,000 people are stung every year in Florida, and 10,000 are stung in Australia by the deadly Portuguese man-of-war, according to the report.

These jellyfish explosions are generated by human activities, some scientists believe. Possible causes include pollution, climate change, introductions of non-native species, overfishing and the presence of artificial structures, such as oil and gas rigs.

Jellyfish swarms have damaged fisheries, fish farms, seabed mining operations, desalination plants and large ships, and they have disabled nuclear power plants by clogging intake pipes.

Dense jellyfish swarm in the Gulf of Mexico (Photo by Monty Graham)

In the Gulf of Mexico's densest jellyfish swarms there are more jellyfish than there is water - 100 jellyfish can occupy each cubic meter of water.

"I'm often asked whether a single, overarching condition is triggering jellyfish swarms in diverse locations," says Monty Graham of Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. Graham says the abnormally large, dense or frequent jellyfish swarms are "a symptom of an ecosystem that has been tipped off balance by environmental stresses."

"The exact nature of such balance-tipping environmental stresses may vary from place to place and usually involve unique interactions with local ecology," Graham explains. "But such stresses are often caused by people."

So, just as a weakened person is vulnerable to opportunistic diseases, stressed ecosystems are vulnerable to infestations of jellyfish.

"There is clear, clean evidence that certain types of human-caused environmental stresses are triggering jellyfish swarms in some locations," William Hamner of the University of California at Los Angeles says in the report.

These stresses include the introduction of jellyfish species into non-native habitats by ships; the formation of ultra-polluted areas, known as Dead Zones, where jellyfish face few predators and competitors; and increases in water temperatures, which accelerate the growth and reproduction of many jellyfish species.

As prey, jellyfish are eaten by seabirds, salmon, sun fish, turtles and other gelatinous creatures.

But as marine turtles have disappeared, jellyfish have proliferated. All seven species of sea turtles eat jellyfish and all seven species are endangered. Their survival is threatened by fishing lines that trap them, pollution, beach development, climate change and sales of turtles and turtle parts.

Box jellyfish in Hawaii (Photo courtesy Waikiki Aquarium)

Jellyfish are not all bad - scientists are identifying ecological services provided by the gelatinous creatures. For instance, recent studies show that the tentacles dangling from the Bering Sea's large jellyfish provide hiding places for young pollock that are pursued by other predators but have grown too big for the jellyfish to eat.

Most species of jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are not harmful to people, according to the National Science Foundation report. But it warns that all true jellyfish and some species of jellyfish-like creatures sting - and a single stinging tentacle may be studded with thousands of stingers.

Stinging gelatinous creatures cause various reactions in people, ranging from no noticeable sensation to rashes, and some cases, death.

Australia's beaches host many types of toxic gelatinous animals, including the Portuguese man-of-war and the world's most venomous animal, the Chironex fleckeri, which can kill a person in under three minutes. In addition, the potentially deadly Irukandji jellyfish, currently increasing in number, are small enough to slip through nets that protect Australia's beaches from the larger Chironex.

Beware, warns the report. Gelatinous creatures that are harmful to people live in every ocean.

Click here to view the report, "Jellyfish Gone Wild: Environmental Change and Jellyfish Swarms."

Originally via Environment News Service

Fishing for Tentacles

Up for grabs with an octopus

Ed Walker, St. Petersburg Times Correspondent
In Print: Saturday, January 17, 2009

The subtle tug on the other end of the line did not feel like the grouper we had been reeling up.

"Maybe a grunt," I mentioned to my fishing partners. As I reeled the mysterious thing up from the bottom 60 feet below, it stopped pulling back altogether.

"What ever it was it is gone now," I mistakenly uttered.

As my rig came to the surface, I saw that there was indeed something attached to the hook — an octopus.

I lifted it into the boat and grabbed it behind the head. Immediately the tentacles wrapped around my arm and the creepy suction cups latched onto my hand, wrist and arm. Knowing that the beak in the center of all those legs can inflict a nasty bite I tried to pull it off, but it was too late.

He had me; his suction cups were locked on and lining me up for a bite. Just as the beak was getting near my skin I managed to rip him off and drop him on the floor of the boat. There he began slithering around, climbing the walls. Soon he simply walked himself up and out of the boat, which was okay by me.

During most years this encounter is relatively unusual; however, this has been one of the cyclical seasons during which large numbers of octopus appear over shallow shelves off West Florida.

It is the thing commercial stone crab trappers fear most. According to them, the octopus show up en masse every seven years or so and wipe out the fishery. When this happens, the marauding eight-legged creatures gobble up a good portion of all the stone crabs in the area.

Not only do they eat the wild crabs, they are adept at entering stone crab traps, eating the crustaceans inside then moving on to the next trap. The only evidence of what has happened to the would-be catch is a large number of crab shells and pieces in the bottom of the trap. Usually the stealthy creatures depart before the traps can be hauled aboard the boat.

Over the past few months the commercial crab catch has plummeted. Trappers generally describe their catch in the average poundage of crabs per trap among all the traps they pull in a day.

In late October many Nature Coast trappers were enjoying a 1 pound or better average over 300 to 400 traps per day. Then came the octopus. Now the catch has plummeted to as low as 15 pounds of claws total for the day out of the same number of traps. Many of the larger operators are hauling their gear in and hoping for a better season next year. In a recent visit to Pelican Point Seafood in Tarpon Springs I witnessed large commercial crab boats unloading their catch for the day, which consisted of more octopus than crab, a bad sign.

For the angler

For the most part, octopuses do not have an impact on hook and line fishing. They seldom prey on fish so the fish do not seem to mind them much. The one way octopus can benefit anglers is as bait. When the tentacles are cut off they make appealing yet tough bait for grouper, particularly red grouper.

Another bizarre benefit is that the tentacles will continue to move around for as long as 30 minutes after they are trimmed from the animal and placed on the hook.

Several years ago we used a piece of octopus to make one of the strangest catches ever. The bait had been on the bottom only for few minutes and the rod tip began to bounce. John Peppe reeled a struggling fish to the surface to find a good sized triggerfish that was not even on the hook. The suction cups on the piece of octopus had latched onto the raspy skin of the triggerfish and held onto him all the way into the boat.

On the table

Although octopus is one of the most popular items on the menus of greek restaurants in Tarpon Springs, cooking them yourself, at least in my case, has proved somewhat difficult. On several occasions I have tried, and no matter how much tenderizing I do they come out tough and chewy. Pounding with a tenderizing hammer or marinating to break down the toughness is what the pros recommend, but my fishing friends and I who have caught octopus have not had much luck.

For now, I'll stick with using them for bait and visit the sponge docks when I have a taste for grilled octopus.

Originally via the St. Petersburg Times

Overdecorated Tentacles?

Tossing Tentacles at the John Dory

Brilliant expensive seafood in a darkling corner of Manhattan

By Robert Sietsema

published: January 21, 2009

• Daniel Neuner

  
  

  

  Fancy décor, delicious food, but at a price

The John Dory
85 Tenth Avenue, 212-929-4948

Tropical fish cavort in an aquarium behind the bar, dolphins dive synchronously over the door, and steel-blue anchovies swim in the raw bar's clear Lucite, as a Roman mosaic spills angular seafood onto the floor. Then there are the fish plates, fish charts, fish tiles, translucent fish light baffles, and fish bas-reliefs. "This place is way over-decorated," my date observed, doing a 360-degree turn of the room. "It worked at the Spotted Pig, but it doesn't work here."

We were sitting at the raw bar at the John Dory, the only seats available unless you reserve weeks ahead. Walk in and sit down at around six in the evening, and watch as the wealthy arrive to claim their tables. The John Dory is the latest project of Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield. Named after a largish deep-sea fish beloved of Brits that grows a fake eye on its side to discourage predators, the restaurant sits on lower Tenth Avenue at the ass-end of Chelsea Market, a strip that has improbably become the city's most upscale restaurant row.

Compared to nearby behemoths like Morimoto, Del Posto, and Craftsteak, the John Dory is relatively small and manageable, consisting of a bar, a pair of picayune dining rooms, and the seating that we occupied along the counter. This counter barely separates you from the narrow kitchen, allowing you to watch the cooking staff of 10 play Twister as they prepare your shore dinner. While the John Dory's décor reminds you of a Yankee fish house in Massachusetts or Maine, only half of its menu is devoted to traditionally prepared seafood. The balance plumbs the depths for creatures that can be served as stylish ceviches and crudos.

As has been reported, the menu is sometimes shockingly expensive. On our first visit, a half-dozen oysters set us back $24, though a general outcry resulted in a $6 discount by our second visit. From a choice of West and East coast varieties, these bivalves are as fresh as an Arctic breeze, accompanied by a spicy green cilantro mignonette and a fluorescent-orange carrot relish. Also among the uncooked selections is a choice of two scallops: tiny Nantucket Bays ($16), slicked with olive oil and a little sea salt, and a single large "day boat" scallop that comes sliced and squirted with colorful sauces. The best of the uncooked selections is the yellowtail, cut into fat matchsticks and dribbled with ginger oil, which is made crunchy with shreds of purple shallot and flakes of charred skin. What a beautiful picture it made on the plate!

We weren't so impressed with the octopus ($20): Rather than meaty appendages, we were served delicate baby tentacles tossed with bottarga (dried cod roe) in a fussy and lackluster salad. The minced razor clams were much better, napped with a zippy, bright-green parsley sauce. That stunning sauce is Bloomfield's signature, and we saw it again and again in its verdant variations. It came, for example, on cod milt (fish sperm, $16), a dish that defines just how far the menu will go to deliver novel seafood sensations. While this may conjure up images of ejaculating fish and hapless under-chefs running after them with paper cups, the semen comes in a sac that fries up like sweetbreads. For aficionados of weird food, it's delicious.

Naturally, the John Dory serves John Dory, and a variation of the green sauce came on the pair of crisp-skinned fillets we sampled one evening. A week later, a whole John Dory ($50) was available as an entrée for two, smothered in the same sauce. The whole-fish selection (which changes frequently) often includes a pair of fine red mullets in an adventuresome sauce of clementines and puntarella that was a tad too sweet, and a sea bass heaped with a green anchovy sauce that mated perfectly with the fish.

Certain entrées are perhaps too predictable—a fish soup ($30), for example, predicated on bouillabaisse. The brick-red broth is unimpeachable, and the assortment of shellfish and fish fillets is impressive. Still, the soup is a little boring as you spoon your way through it. More adventuresome are the pair of splendid squid carapaces stuffed with Spanish chorizo—in a recipe swiped from Casa Mono—and a Dungeness crab in a sauce so peppery that it made my nose run (it was probably inspired by Fatty Crab). There's also an oyster pan roast—a Yankee standard—filled with so much flavor that you may never want to eat the Oyster Bar's version again.

Then again, on second thought, maybe blandness is the whole point of a pan roast.

Originally found at the Village Voice

Stealth Tentacle Fashion

Spotted on the subway - more tentacle tote bags. I saw this bag twice and snapped it once with my cell phone. I saw another tentacle bag, but it was leaving the subway so I did not get a chance to capture it. It was black with cartoony, blocky, colorful squid figures.


Tentacles - so hot right now. Apparently. Who knew?

Tentacle Jewelry of all types

From the beautiful to the tacky, these tentacles are wacky.



More of some of the more elegant tentacle jewelry I've seen at FreshPicsArt


Another Etsy.com option from Squidglass.

Ok, none of these are particularly tacky, but I was thinking of this green plastic necklace that I wrote about earlier. I also found this silver specimen.

More websites that claim Tentacles

But of course, many of them do not cover tentacle news. Here at Today in Tentacles, though, we let the reader judge for him or herself. Please turn your objective tentacle eyes to these links. If some of them are reposts, forgive me. Tentacles are tricky.

River of the Tentacle Beast

Queen of the Tentacles

Stitching Tentacles

And some websites that do cover tentacles, sort of:

Squid from Space: Musings of the Cosmic Calamari.
Whether or not he's blogging about tentacles all the time, this is a guy who clearly gets it.

Squid.us
The closest thing I've seen to what I'm doing here - and it's been going on for 3 years, via Laughing Squid and now closing down. I feel only slightly foolish.

Tentacle-named Album

Crystal Antlers prep debut full-length, tour Europe

January 21, 2009 12:28 p.m. by Matthew Fiander

It is getting difficult to keep all these "Crystal" bands straight, but Crystal Antlers seems to be the band that released a proggy, self-titled EP last year. And now the band is coming out with their first full-length record, and perhaps they'll be the only Crystal band to do so, giving them a little time in the spotlight. Tentacles will be released by Touch & Go on April 7 (April 6 in the UK). The 13-song album was recorded in one week in San Francisco and marks the return of original guitarist Errol Davis. While they wait for the album's release, the band will head out on a massive tour, including their first trek through Europe and a number of west coast dates.

Originally via Prefixmag.com, via Pitchfork

More Etsy Tentacles

Etsy.com sells so very many products that involve tentacles and squid.
Originally by DigDownGallery via Etsy.com - found by Tendency.

Rock 'n Roll Tentacles

The video game Rock Band (like Guitar Hero, but with all the instruments) has some great tentacle art in it. That's because tentacles are pretty ROCK 'N ROLL and METAL. Yeah!

Check it out -

See more at the RockBand Store.

Hollywood Tentacles

As long as we're on the topic of Hollywood tentacles - Pirates of the Carribean, Transformers - let me mention some older tentacle news: the jellyfish in Will Smith's latest film, Seven Pounds. Of course, there were [poisonous] tentacles.

Jellyfish

Will Smith flashes forward and backward as a troubled man who must audit his own life in 'Seven Pounds'

By Richard von Busack

TRYING TO WRITE honestly about the sight of Rosario Dawson requires not words but sounds. The hnhn hnhn hnhn bleat of a guinea pig being gripped too tightly, maybe. Or, when she shyly unfolds the pearliest overbite on the planet, the whimpering you might hear at 3am in a Moldavian orphanage. Thing is, Dawson must be found utterly innocent of Seven Pounds.

Explaining the title right off beggars community standards of sanity and is a spoiler to boot. Let's prepare for that revelation by condemning how the goddessy Rosario is vandalized. In the interests of pathos, director Gabrielle Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) has powdered her with blue-gray makeup to give her the cyanotic hue of someone with a bad heart.

Worse, in some scenes, she wears the plastic mustache of the oxygen-tank huffer. She's in a bad way, see. And then she meets her angel, Ben Thomas (Will Smith). Carrying around an IRS auditor's pass, he busybodies his way into the lives of several individuals somewhere in the nicer part of Southern California.

Seven Pounds begins like that D.O.A. movie the producers think nobody saw, with Ben sweatily phoning 911 to report a suicide. His own! And yet (flashback!) recently, he was a slick aerospace executive, telling his minions that the best way to sell something is to (1) figure out what you're going to tell the client, (2) tell the client and (3) tell them what you told them. And that's precisely the way Seven Pounds tells its story.

On some mysterious Mary Worthian journey of investigation (the time frame is so shattered you can't really tell what comes first), Smith holes up for two weeks in a crap motel. There, he is exposed to regularly scheduled doses of ethnic comedy by the clerk. Smith's lone companion is a deadly Australian box jellyfish in an aquarium tank. "Nobody keep fish in the room!" complains the Honduran (or something) hotelier, played by Joe Nunez. Chekhov's law: If you see a jellyfish in the first act, it must tentacle someone by the end of the story. This stuff underscores the part the deadly floating cubozoan will play in the drama to come.

While sniffing around, Ben stalks a blind customer service rep (Woody Harrelson) at a steaks-by-mail outfit; the man keeps his cool even as Ben badgers him for selling dog-food-grade meat and being a blind virgin vegan to boot. Later (flashback or flash-forward?), Ben mulls over the case of a guy who runs an old-folks convalescent home.

There, our hero discovers that one old lady is mistreated. Or so she says; demented old people say a lot of things. In another episode, Ben saunters into a golf course to have meetings with an old pal (Barry Pepper, squirming in an underwritten part) with whom he has some fatal contract.

At last, some romance. Our mystery man worms his way into the life of the mortally ill Emily Posa (Dawson), a wedding-card designer with antique letter presses in her garage workshop. The film almost perks up here. Knowing how sweet Dawson looks with her glasses on from seeing Clerks II, you could imagine her poring over the fonts and the kerning, her lovely café au lait brow furrowed in concentration (whimper)—believe it or don't, the line they gave this remarkable woman is "Just so you should know this, I used to be hot."

They do try to keep Dawson idealized, sometimes. Emily collapses when walking her dog (a great Dane who keeps stealing scenes), and she hits the concrete in slow-motion like a KO'd prizefighter. In the next scene she doesn't have a mark on her face.

Such is Seven Pounds—an awkward match of the metaphorical and the literal, with hand-held camera meeting luxury-car commercial settings. Nothing smells up the place like leftover haggis, and this is a movie made by people who saw Crash and wept for a solid week afterward. Trying to straighten out this film would be like trying to unscramble an egg.

There are signs of the cast calling for help throughout. Sample line, Emily to Ben: "I know I'm the girl with the broken wing, but who are you?" This stuff might have made it with a more classical Hollywood studio tone, but there's something about the cruel atmosphere of hospitals that makes this literal, clinical and creepy.

The commercials for the movie are trying to veil the subject matter, as well they might. So, beware, here comes the SPOILER: As for the seven pounds (of flesh) Smith proposes to deliver up, it is the ultimate Magic Negro experience in cinema, as well as being absolute total bollocks. But it's all just a more extreme version of the self-flogging trip so many of the stars of this Christmas season are on: whether it's Ralph Fiennes pantomiming that his German clothes are on too tight in The Reader or Brad Pitt deciding to wander the world like Caine in Kung Fu. For one very last time, let's blame George W. Bush for this epidemic of guilt.

Probably everyone has said to their lover, "For you, my adored, I would rip out my heart, Aztec-wise, and make a sacred bloody chacmool out of your lap." Maybe not in so many words, but still. Yet staging this kind of poetic sacrifice is a painful literalness, a stomach turner when the holidays are queasy-making enough as it is.

This particular article is from MetroSantaCruz.com, but you can find many more if you Google "Seven Pounds Tentacles".

Transformer Tentacles

The next Transformers movie (cue robotic movement noise - ju-JU-ju-ju) will feature a baddy with a tentacle arm! So very exciting. I wish they had a picture to go along with this newsflash. I've bolded the relevant text.

Roberto Orci Addresses Some 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' Rumors

January 15, 2009 07:09:35 GMT

Talking about the upcoming sequel of 'Transformers', 'Revenge of the Fallen', the action film's co-scribbler Roberto Orci gives out hints on some of the rumors.

Screenwriter Roberto Orci has talked about a couple of rumors circulating around "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". Sharing a few hints about the "Transformers" sequel to IGN, the co-creator of "Fringe" confirms previous speculation about Pretender and has an extremely short say about Ravage.

Though he doesn't exactly give out much on the details of the Pretender or confirm speculation that Alice is a Pretender, Orci insists that the Transformers hiding inside a human-shaped shell will indeed be seen in the sequel. "I'll give you an exclusive here," he gushes. "There is a Pretender. I'm going to get killed for saying that."

Back in October 2008, TWF2005 has broken out the speculation that Isabel Lucas' Alice will be a Pretender, a transformer which hides itself inside a disguising shell. "The Pretender Transformer will have an arm that transforms into an energy weapon, a long tongue, and a scanning tentacle," the blog further detailed on the new robot.

Apart from confirming the existence of Pretender in the film, Orci also discusses the story of the sequel compared to the first one. "It's an extreme [jump] from the first one," he says. "The outrageous, crazy humor is more outrageous, but then so is the serious side of it and so is the stakes of the Transformers plot and the seriousness with which some of their mythology is treated."

"So it kind of swings wildly between those two extremes, and that I think was one of the successful parts of the first movie. Again, some of the die hard fans will be equally annoyed at some of the things they see, but I can also say they will be more gratified than they were for the first one, to see how some of the Transformers story and how their battle takes place in the second one," Orci adds. Complete interview with Roberto Orci can be read via IGN.

Written by Ehren Kruger, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," will follow Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes as they are being attack by Decepticons because Sam has learned about the origins of the Transformers and their ancient history on Earth. While the baddies try to capture Sam to acquire the knowledge, U.S. military and an international coalition unite with Autobots to fight back the villains' attack.

Starring once again Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro, the action fantasy film will be supported by Isabel Lucas, Rainn Wilson and others. While the trailer is said to be debuted during Super Bowl on February 1, the movie itself will come out in the U.S. big screen on June 26.

Originally via AceShowBiz.com

Face Tentacles on People

Art - by Jeremy Forson, originally via Curiouser and Curiouser



Also in tattoo form on Mr. Forson's Flickr:



And in Hollywood - Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, as played by Bill Nighy:

Face Tentacles

Here, fishy fishy fishy fishy...


Original link.

Video Game Tentacle Boss

Resident Evil 5 has a Tentacle Boss! I'm not really sure what that means.

Posted Jan 10, 2009 at 02:43PM by Isaac C. Listed in: Resident Evil 5, Games, Screenshots Tags: Capcom

Ó

18 QJ

Just don't tell me that's Jill Valentine. New screens of Resident Evil 5 (PS3, Xbox 360) reveals a new tentacle monster that will be a reoccurring boss character. It looks like a pretty tough boss to beat. Creepy as hell too. Can you imagine what a tentacle monster would to you? Um, for the record, that wasn't meant to sound dirty. Ok, yes it was.

Originally via QJ.net

Tentacle Reproduction

Bizarre Reproductive Techniques Discovered for deep-ocean squid

December 09, 2008

Males that produce sperm packages that can penetrate deep into the skin. Females with bellies full of stored sperm. Males that seriously injure the females during mating. This is just a selection of the bizarre reproductive techniques that marine biologist Henk-Jan Hoving has discovered with different species of deep-ocean squid. He will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 19 December 2008.

‘Reproducing in the deep ocean is a real challenge’, says Hoving. The deep ocean is unbelievably huge – 80 percent of the seafloor lies at depths of two kilometres or more. It’s not easy to find a partner in that gigantic, pitch-black environment. So, once you find one, you have to seize the moment. Squids that live in the deep ocean have developed a wide range of fascinating reproductive techniques to this end.

Deep cuts
Hoving investigated the reproductive techniques of no fewer than ten different squids and related cuttlefish – from the twelve-metre long giant squid to a mini-squid of no more than twenty-five millimetres in length. Along the way he made a number of remarkable discoveries. Hoving: ‘Reproduction is no fun if you’re a squid. With one species, the Taningia danae, I discovered that the males give the females cuts of at least 5 centimetres deep in their necks with their beaks or hooks – they don’t have suction pads. They then insert their packets of sperm, also called spermatophores, into the cuts.’

Through the skin
With a different species, the Moroteuthis ingens, the spermatophores are introduced in a more peaceful way. ‘With this species the spermatophores penetrate the skin independently. They probably do that with the help of an enzyme-like substance that dissolves tissue.’ Hoving is the first to be able to prove that these sperm packets are able to penetrate the skin under their own steam. He discovered this when he experimentally placed spermatophores on the skin of just-caught individuals. His results are supported by an incident in Japan, where someone had to have an operation after eating squid to remove a spermatophore that lodged in his throat.

Sperm in reserve
When studying the mini-squid Heteroteuthis dispar, Hoving also made an extraordinary discovery. For the first time he found a squid that probably fertilizes its eggs internally. ‘The females have a pouch for storing sperm that is directly linked to the belly and the oviducts. This indicates that fertilization takes place within the body and not outside - which is more common for squid.’ Males fill the female’s pouch with a great deal of sperm. About three percent of the body weight of a female who has mated consists of stored sperm. This has a number of advantages. The females, who produce eggs over a long period, thus have a steady supply ‘in reserve’ which they can make use of. Another advantage is that when the pouch is full, no sperm from other males will fit.

Female characteristics
Hoving was also the first to discover male squid with female characteristics. ‘Usually, squid have separate sexes. There are no hermaphrodites, as with snails. But with one species, Ancistrocheirus lesueurii, some of the males turned out to have small glands that in females are involved in egg production. They also had significantly longer bodies than “normal” males.’ Hoving cannot explain this phenomenon. ‘It’s possible that it’s the result of hormones and hormone-like substances that end up in the surface water as a result of human action – for example use of the pill – and then sink down to the deep ocean. However, it may also be an alternative reproductive strategy and a way of getting closer to the females.’

Vulnerable ecosystem
Hoving’s research has produced a wealth of information about deep-ocean squid. ‘Previously, there was little known about these organisms. That was because they were very difficult to study. The deep ocean is very inaccessible. Diving to such depths is only possible with the help of advanced technology.’ In order to gain an understanding of the reproductive habits of squid he had to use dead individuals, which he got hold of in many inventive ways. ‘For example, I’ve joined scientific expeditions but have also used examples that were found in the 1960s and 1970s in the stomachs of commercially caught sperm whales.’ Hoving hopes that his research will contribute to sustainable exploitation of the deep ocean. ‘Fishing is taking place at deeper and deeper depths. The deep ocean is a very vulnerable ecosystem, however. We desperately need to learn more about this ecosystem.’

At The University of Gronigen NZ, via Schneier on Security

Cute but Deadly Tentacles

More deep-sea tentacle footage. It's adorable. I recommend turning on the sound for the full Japanese-monster-movie effect.



Via the essential PinkTentacle.com

REAL NEWS: Rumor of Tentacle-shaped UFO

Could 'Tentacle' UFO Have Destroyed UK Wind Turbine?
Andrew Williams
January 6, 2009
CleanTechnica.com

Several residents of a remote English village have reported sightings of a bizarre tentacle-shaped UFO above a local wind farm, on the night before a wind turbine was mysteriously destroyed.

Engineers from energy suppier Ecotricity are investigating why a blade more than 20 meters (66 ft) long fell off the turbine at a wind farm in Conisholme Fen, Lincolnshire, early on Sunday morning. In the meantime, locals are coming to their own conclusions after many of them saw strange flashing tentacle shaped lights above the wind farm on the night before the damage occurred.

John Harrison, a resident of nearby Saltfleetby, said he looked out of his window on Saturday night to see “a massive ball of light,” and “tentacles going right down to the ground” over the site. “It was huge” he said “At first I thought it must have been a hole where the moon was shining through but then I saw the tentacles – it looked just like an octopus.

“It was an incredible site; I have never seen anything like it before. I have no idea what it was, all I can say is what I saw”.

However, officials are remaining tight-lipped about the cause of the damage. A spokesman from Ecotricity said, “This has never happened before so we really have no idea what might have gone wrong. We will conduct a thorough inspection of the turbines to see if there is a problem and put it right.”

Damage to wind turbines, although rare, is more common than many would anticipate. This link provides dramatic footage of a wind turbine appearing to spin wildly out of control before shattering and falling to the ground.

Found by Alex via CleanTechnica.com

Read more at Louthleader.co.uk

Fast Tentacle Facts

Jan 5, 2009 12:11 pm US/Eastern

Fast Facts: Portuguese Man O' War

'Jellyfish' It Is Not--Actually 4 Individual Creatures

Tentacles Can Stretch Over 100 Feet

Man O' War Is Common In South Florida

MIAMI (CBS4) ―

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The Portuguese Man O' War, known to most people as a jellyfish, is not a fish or even a single animal, but is actually a floating colony of four different organisms. They are different, though, than the traditional Jellyfish, known as the box Jellyfish, and their stings should be treated differently.

Man O' War can be found in many tropical parts of the world, but are plentiful on South Florida beaches in the winter, when favorable currents blow them ashore.

The Man O' War is known for long blue, threadlike tentacles, which dangle far below the part of the colony which lives on the surface. The surface portion acts as a sail, helping move the Man O' War along. The tentacles below, which can trail feet from the main body, act among other things as a stabilizer and rudder.

The tentacles also protect the Man O' War and stun its prey, which if it happens to be Human, can cause painful welts.

WHAT IT IS:

The man-of-war's body consists of a nitrogen-filled bladder-like float which is translucent and which may be 3 to 12 inches long and may extend as much as 6 inches above the water.

Beneath the float are clusters of polyps, from which hang tentacles of up to 165 feet in length concerned with detecting and capturing prey, with reproducing, and with feeding. The "animal" moves by means of its crest, which functions as a sail.

The Man O' War can eat basically anything that comes in contact with its stinging tentacle polyps which "fish" continuously through the water. The sting is very painful to man and can cause serious effects, including fever, shock, and interference with heart and lung action.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

The indications that you have been stung by a Man O' War are: Stinging, burning, redness, swelling of lymph nodes. You may see long welt lines. In some people sensitive to the Man O' War venom, there may be severe reactions, including difficulty with breathing and cardiac arrest.

The sting toxin secreted from the tentacles is a neurotoxin about seventy-five percent as powerful as cobra venom. The welts can last for minutes to hours.

Studies on the effectiveness of meat tenderizer, baking soda, papain, or commercial sprays (containing aluminum sulfate and detergents) on nematocyst stings have been contradictory. It's possible these substances cause further damage.

IMMEDIATE FIRST AID ADVICE:

If you have been stung with what you think is a Man O' War, try these steps to minimize the pain and damage.

---Rinse the area with seawater or fresh water to remove any tentacles stuck to the skin. This can be from a spray bottle or in a beach shower.

---For severe pain, try applying heat or cold, whichever feels better.

---While most stings are NOT generally fatal, some people can have severe allergic reactions to the sting that can cause a health danger. Consider even the slightest breathing difficulty, or altered level of consciousness, a medical emergency. Call for help immediately.

--- Irrigate exposed eyes with copious amounts of room temperature tap water for at least 15 minutes. If vision blurs, or the eyes continue to tear, hurt, swell, or are light sensitive after irrigating, see a doctor.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Tentacle Messenger Bags: So Hot Right Now

While it certainly confounds me a bit, I'm pleased to see that so many other people appreciate tentacle-chic.


The elephant-squid messenger bag, by Resist Today, available at Shanlogic.com.



And the tentacle messenger bag, by Raygun Robyn, spotted on her Livejournal, Curdburger, and available at her Etsy.com store.

Construct a Tentacle!

What *is* it about tentacles? At least other people agree with me. Check out Te Papa's Colossal Squid Site, which is the companion site to the Colossal Squid exhibit that opened in New Zealand recently. It's cute, it's kitschy, and best of all, you can Build Your Own Squid! It's more fun than you can shake a tentacle at. The opening of this exhibit marks one of the bits of actual tentacle *news* - as opposed to kitchy products for sale - that's been mentioned on Today in Tentacles.



May I also strongly encourage you to check out a video of the tentacles up close and personal. Go to this link and click "Getting up close to the colossal squid's arms and tentacles".

I found it via MAKE Magazine.

"Tentacle Lickin' Good"

The original blog post says it all. Paul appears to be a noble curator of tentacles and all things reefy and has generously shared his 72 gallon aquarium with us via the internets.

Paul has captured his sea anemone with a tentacle STILL IN ITS MOUTH. Check it out:

I fed my Bubble Tipped Anemone a small sliver of frozen Formula One yesterday. It closed around the piece of food and ate it. When it started opening back up I was able to snap this picture of the anemone with a tentacle still in its mouth. I never really knew before how it got the food to its mouth. I always thought that the tentacles kind of pushed it in that direction until it fell in. From this picture it looks like a tentacle grabs the food and places it in the mouth.

How does it do this? This animal has no brain. How does it know the spatial relationship between its tentacles and its mouth? Simply fascinating.

Original post at the aptly named Paul's Reef. Click back to the main blog to read more about all his tentacled pets and their friends.

Tentacle Art

Spotted at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, CA this past June. I tried to figure out the artist based on the Flickr upload date (June 5, 2008). It may be from the Four Group Show that went up at the Gallery on May 30. Unclear.

Photo via Flickr.

Be Serpentine in 2009!

Happy New Year, tentacle fans!