Paging Mr. Lovecraft to the white courtsey phone...

October 10, 2011 11:52 AM

"We believe the kraken may have killed them and drawn its potrait with their bones."
posted by Diablevert (58 comments total)

Man, these new CSI arcs are just plain weird.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2011 [15 favorites]

It's a neat story in general ("Paleontology? Kraken? This is made for me!"), but man I could have done without the portrait angle.
posted by brundlefly at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2011

And no, we're not talking about Cthulhu.

Um...yes you are.
posted by goethean at 11:57 AM on October 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

That's horrifying. Any kind of creature that could do such a thing must be an abomination against nature.

Oh, wait....
posted by gurple at 11:57 AM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I love the first comment: "Dear everyone: this is not what palentologists usually do with their time."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:01 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's a cookbook...
posted by Artw at 12:02 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I desperately want this to be true.
posted by FritoKAL at 12:02 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sadly, were I a paleontologist, this is what I would do with my time.
posted by blurker at 12:02 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I love the first comment: "Dear everyone: this is not what palentologists usually do with their time."

And the second comment: "And that's clearly where you've let us down."
posted by rtimmel at 12:07 PM on October 10, 2011 [12 favorites]

I'm afraid of swimming in the ocean for any length of time because I have too vivid an imagination and can see in my mind a Megalosaurus surfacing to eat me. It's a crawling sensation on the back of my neck that becomes more intense until I have to paddle frantically to shore until it passes.

Now I have to worry about kraken, too? I may just start washing out of a teacup in the living room.
posted by winna at 12:07 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

This is how Steven Spielberg's paleontologists spend their time.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:08 PM on October 10, 2011

When I find out who this is, I'm gonna cut open yer skull and paint my house witcher brains!!
posted by AugieAugustus at 12:13 PM on October 10, 2011

Give the artist a break; he needed materials and he didn't have any money.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:16 PM on October 10, 2011

I desperately want this to be true.

Which is why it's probably not.
posted by Nixy at 12:16 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Nixy - I've become used to paleontology thwarting my personal desires for a long time. No giant ridable brontosaurs, then no brontosaurs period, then no alternate world where dinosaurs still exist, no dinosaurs in the arctic living around a giant hot spring. They're clearly reading my emails and going back in time just to disappoint me personally.
posted by FritoKAL at 12:18 PM on October 10, 2011 [10 favorites]

It's like someone created a version of Dwarf Fortress for prehistoric giant squid and wrote up a session report. In a good way.
posted by mecran01 at 12:18 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

They're clearly reading my emails and going back in time just to disappoint me personally.

That is why they will be going back and adding feathers to all the cool mega-octopi.
posted by Artw at 12:28 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

A new theory suggests that a 100-foot-long cephalopod arranged these bones as a self-portrait after drowning the reptiles.

I love that they Occam's Razored this out as the most likely solution. Because this is how I imagine that religious mythology is born, and as far as I'm concerned this is just as good a candidate.

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend? I imagine it'll involve drinking in the park and studiously avoiding eating calamari.
posted by quin at 12:29 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I keep misreading kraken as kitten, which has made the Internet inadvertently hilarious today.
posted by desjardins at 12:30 PM on October 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

They're clearly reading my emails and going back in time just to disappoint me personally.

Alas, it's the inverse law of reality to awesomeness in a cold and indifferent universe.
posted by Nixy at 12:31 PM on October 10, 2011

Ms. Zamboni just called me after attending the presentation at GSA - she was, well, unconvinced. The guy ran out of time, and mercifully, the moderator didn't allow questions, allowing the next talk to start mostly on schedule.
posted by zamboni at 12:32 PM on October 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

McMenamin anticipates that this theory will be met with skepticism, as the fleshy body of a giant Triassic octopus wouldn't fossilize well.

I love the fact he had to make up a giant monster as his foundation assumption. Were they drinking a lot when he read his paper? Sounds like a fun conference.
posted by warbaby at 12:34 PM on October 10, 2011

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend?

Count me in! I was already planning on kraken open a sixer!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:34 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yowza. Those are not little ichthyosaurs. The 12-year old in me so wants this to be true, but the rest of me wonders how the hell can you test this hypothesis. Or come up with it, for that matter.
posted by gamera at 12:34 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

The 12-year old in you is still alive, gamera? You may need to add yogurt to your diet. It really aids in the digestion.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:38 PM on October 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's when you find the human remains in that strata that it gets interesting.
posted by Artw at 12:39 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend?

I practice Kraken worship every weekend.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:41 PM on October 10, 2011

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend? I imagine it'll involve drinking in the park and studiously avoiding eating calamari.

Change the calamari policy and I'm in.
posted by goethean at 12:46 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The 12-year old in you is still alive, gamera?

What, you ate Kenny? Gamera, you MONSTER!
posted by KingEdRa at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Well, Florence, someone has to wear the turtle suit.
posted by gamera at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2011

That sad part is that, throughout its life, the kraken slaved away at its art, and never even got a gallery show. Now that it's extinct, of course, it's famous.
posted by MrVisible at 12:54 PM on October 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

PZ Meyers points out that this guy also claims that mariners of ancient Carthage made it to America long before Eriksson and Columbus, some time around 350 BC.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:55 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

The 12-year old in you is still alive, gamera?

FRIEND TO ALL SOME CHILDREN
posted by zamboni at 12:56 PM on October 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

The guy ran out of time

I guess he never get to the part about the trilobyte fossils that spelled out:

END OF DAYS
12.31.12
posted by PlusDistance at 12:59 PM on October 10, 2011

Hmm. Well, they've already proven that modern-day squid are extremely intelligent. So...Kraken-sized squid...bigger brains...It's an underwater bower-bird!
posted by New England Cultist at 1:05 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

That sad part is that, throughout its life, the kraken slaved away at its art, and never even got a gallery show. Now that it's extinct, of course, it's famous.

Yeah, and somewhere some invertebrate is saying to its mate "big deal, it looks like my one of my hatchlings did it."
posted by Gygesringtone at 1:11 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Really, you can make up any story you want from the fossil record. Imputing aesthetic self-awareness to giant prehistoric squids? Good for driving traffic to the website I guess, but obviously nonsensical as a theory.
posted by spitbull at 1:20 PM on October 10, 2011

I don't understand, self-portrait? Did the ancient kraken look like a rock wall? If so, capital job man, it's uncanny!
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 1:21 PM on October 10, 2011

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend?

Just be careful you don't summon something you can't send back.
posted by homunculus at 1:29 PM on October 10, 2011

witcher brains

Aether or albedo?
posted by adamdschneider at 1:30 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

FRIEND TO ALL SOME CHILDREN

Gamera, FRIED UP ALL CHILDREN.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:35 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sing it!

I'd like to be
under the sea
In an octopus's garden
in the shade.
He'd let us in,
knows where we've been
and eat our immortal souls.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu,
R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

That last part gets a little guttural. Gotta relax the throat.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:36 PM on October 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I only hope I live long enough for them to uncover the Kraken equivalent of the Louvre. Imagine Kraken Rococco!
posted by Euphorbia at 1:41 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Kraken Rococco

The best of all possible sockpuppet names.
posted by MrVisible at 1:48 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The pizza's not bad, either.
posted by desjardins at 1:54 PM on October 10, 2011

McMenamin is one of the reliable comedy spots at GSA every year (the other is a Young Earth creationist). While I skipped the Kraken talk this year, a few years ago I saw him present that he had found the oldest example of telepathy in the fossil record, proving it was not just man who was telepathic. I am hoping that his Kraken was also telepathic!
posted by girl scientist at 2:59 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Zack Snyder killed it.
posted by Artw at 3:02 PM on October 10, 2011

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend? I imagine it'll involve drinking in the park and studiously avoiding eating calamari.

No, see, the Ur Kraken is an unfathomable horror who rules over a terrifying domain of ultimate predation, and would therefore want us to eat calimari because we're taller and it's just plain delicious.
posted by byanyothername at 3:04 PM on October 10, 2011

And calamari, that's pretty yummy, too.
posted by byanyothername at 3:05 PM on October 10, 2011

Especially the mon kind.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:16 PM on October 10, 2011

Hey, I've been to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park! I even have a coffee mug from there - it says "We Dig Ichthyosaurs". It's a pretty neat little place to visit - way out in the middle of nowhere, a hundred or so miles down the Loneliest Highway in America before you even get to the turn-off to the two-lane back road that takes you there. And yes, there are lots of ichthyosaur fossils to look at; they're kind of like giant marlin.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:31 PM on October 10, 2011

So, who's up for some Kraken worship this weekend?

China Miéville can give you some pointers on how...
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:59 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense
posted by brundlefly at 9:55 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

No. No no no. This cannot be because it would indicate that octopuses, etc. are even smarter than previously thought and they're already too fucking smart for my comfort.
posted by deborah at 11:35 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

As much as I love io9 for it's monthly calendar of things scifi/fantasy, the (not-so-) new layout makes looking for interesting articles about as pleasant as digging through a manure pile with a spork.
posted by HFSH at 2:51 AM on October 11, 2011

It's like someone created a version of Dwarf Fortress for prehistoric giant squid and wrote up a session report. In a good way.

This is a self-portrait. All craftkrakenship is of the highest quality. It is made of icthyosaur bone. On the item is image of a kraken in icthyosaur bone. It menaces with spikes of icthyosaur bone.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:57 AM on October 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense

An excellent commentary on the poor quality of science journalism, to be sure. However, is it so unreasonable for me to stop and wipe away a solitary tear for the gigantic artistic squid that never was but ought to have been, god damn it?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:42 AM on October 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

io9...the (not-so-) new layout

Yuck. I hate it too. Use this and it reverts back to the old blogview format.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2011