Monday, May 30, 2011

Freakin' Vampire Squid


OMG these things just pop out of my worst nightmares. And for all of you that are just watching the pretty colors, I gotta tell you, YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD!! That is how they GETCHA!!

And who was the genius who gave this abomination the name 'Vampire Squid'? That name just makes this thing that extra bit more horrific than it needed to be.

The Vampire Squid is almost entirely covered in light-producing organs called photopores. The animal has great control over the organs, capable of producing disorienting flashes of light for fractions of a second to several minutes in duration. The intensity and size of the photophores can also be modulated. Appearing as small white discs, the photophores are larger and more complex at the tips of the arms and at the base of the two fins, but are absent from the underside of the caped arms. Two larger white areas on top of the head were initially believed to also be photophores, but have turned out to be photoreceptors.

4 comments:

M. D. Jackson said...

They are most dangerous, especially to 19 year old emo girls with low self esteem. The "sparkling" is what gets them.

csmith2884 said...

I saw a show the other day that they now think the flashes are a language. This will not do! Kal, get the air-gun I will get the whetstone and sharpen up.

Belle said...

That is one frightening squid.

Kal said...

A LANGUAGE!!! Well that is absolutely the last straw. You would think they would have the common decency to learn English like the rest of the civilized world. But NO, they are special. They need a light based language so they can gossip to their alien friends about us without us knowing what they are saying. Just like my relatives all speaking Ukrainian in the kitchen when they didn't want us kids to know what they were talking about. Kinda like 'Close Encounters' isn't it where the aliens talked to the human scientist guys with light and sound. Now do you see how all of my anti cephalopod theories make perfect sense? The ocean bottom is a perfectly fine place to hide a spaceship you don't want any pesky humans finding out about. And while your down there why not make friends with that nice tentacled neighbor you find you have. It's all just so evil.