Cephalopod vs. Cephalopod

November 12, 2012 12:51 PM

Video (1m4s): Cuttlefish Attacks Octopus

A technician servicing an underwater sonar unit has his spanner stolen by a curious octopus. When a large cuttlefish glides onto the scene, things get violent.

posted by Scientist (66 comments total)

More importantly, though, why does this octopus have access to an entire range of black & decker tools?
posted by elizardbits at 12:55 PM on November 12, 2012 [14 favorites]

OH NO MY FAVORITE LOVECRAFTIAN HORRORS ARE FIGHTING STOP YOU GUYS
posted by The Whelk at 12:58 PM on November 12, 2012 [24 favorites]

Why don't you want to go snorkeling? they said. It's fun! they said. There surely aren't any fell horrors lurking beneath the waves! they insisted.
posted by Think_Long at 1:05 PM on November 12, 2012 [5 favorites]

Curiosity kills more than cats, it would appear.
posted by Malor at 1:09 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

The cuttlefish is an enforcer for the Craftsman cartel.
posted by zippy at 1:10 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Man, what a sucker.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:10 PM on November 12, 2012

The awesome part is that the cuttlefish doesn't glide onto the scene, HE WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME.
posted by HFSH at 1:11 PM on November 12, 2012 [17 favorites]

Welcome to Obama's America.
posted by PlusDistance at 1:15 PM on November 12, 2012 [21 favorites]

Cuttelfish is just mad because octopus gave it the wrong wrench.
posted by Mister_A at 1:16 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Aw, cuddlefish.
posted by Artw at 1:20 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

What a ripoff. I was expecting to see them fight, with that Star Trek fight music playing in the background.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:20 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

And as they embraced, Bethany could no longer tell where her tentacles ended and Roger's tentacles began.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:21 PM on November 12, 2012 [10 favorites]

No one names their kids Roger anymore.
posted by Mister_A at 1:22 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

There is no fucking around underwater.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:25 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Alas, this was not the all-cephalopod cast reenactment of the Rancor Pit scene from Return of the Jedi that I was hoping for when the clip began.
posted by Avelwood at 1:27 PM on November 12, 2012

I've seen enough hentai...
posted by The otter lady at 1:28 PM on November 12, 2012

Oh dang, I didn't notice the previously. My bad.

I pretty much just saw the video and was like "WOAH AWESOME I MUST TELL METAFILTER ABOUT THIS". If it must be consigned to the graveyard of doubles, then so be it.
posted by Scientist at 1:29 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Mister_A: "Cuttelfish is just mad because octopus gave it the wrong wrench."

Word.
posted by notsnot at 1:30 PM on November 12, 2012

Prometheus would have been much cooler if they had left in these deleted scenes.
posted by painquale at 1:33 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

We don't know for SURE that this is an attack; maybe the octopus was late for parent-teacher night and the cuttlefish, already stressed about their interspecies romance and the judgmental behavior of the mean flounder teaching little jimmy and susie cuttlepus, had had enough of the octopus' fiddling around with spanners in the garage.
posted by elizardbits at 1:33 PM on November 12, 2012 [11 favorites]

suddenly i am really emotionally invested in this relationship
posted by elizardbits at 1:34 PM on November 12, 2012 [12 favorites]

oh man, does what it says on the tin. i'm apparently too tender for this today because it made me cry.
posted by nadawi at 1:35 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

damn you natural world, unicorns eating unicorns, leprechauns feasting on ondine gyros. Can't we all just get along
posted by Auden at 1:36 PM on November 12, 2012

Don't EVER call an octopus stupid!
posted by rongorongo at 1:37 PM on November 12, 2012

interORDER romance, whatevs.
posted by elizardbits at 1:37 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

No matter where you are, even at the bottom of the sea, the Snap-On Tools guy will repo your wrench if you don't make the payment.
posted by mrbill at 1:39 PM on November 12, 2012

It always ends badly.
posted by HuronBob at 1:41 PM on November 12, 2012

. . . little jimmy and susie cuttlepus. . .

Cuttlepus is the least popular of Carvel ice-cream cakes.
posted by The Bellman at 1:51 PM on November 12, 2012 [10 favorites]

I am now less likely to trust cuttlefish in my daily life. Call me cuttlefisht, I don't care.
posted by steef at 1:51 PM on November 12, 2012

Aw, man. Cephalopods gotta stick together. Not cool.
posted by brundlefly at 1:56 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

So this octopus is just hanging out, making interspecies friends, learning about our technology and trying to communicate with us (sadly, we never change our pigmentation in response) when all of a sudden this asshole cuttlefish sneaks up behind it and eats it. Nerds vs. jocks all over, red in tooth and claw and tentacle and chitinous beak.

So basically cuttlefish are assholes, is what I'm saying. ASSHOLES.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 1:59 PM on November 12, 2012 [16 favorites]

We don't know what the octopus did to the cuttlefish before the camera was rolling. Maybe it pantsed it! We don't know!
posted by Mister_A at 2:04 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was really hoping the captured octopus would start desparately flailing about with his tentacles, encounter the wrench, display a brief tentacular expression of excitement, and bop the cuttlefish on the head, securing his escape. But my hopes were dashed.
posted by Pistache at 2:07 PM on November 12, 2012 [9 favorites]

Not much of a "vs." there.
posted by clvrmnky at 2:10 PM on November 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

A dead octopus is better than a World Cup predicting octopus.
posted by IvoShandor at 2:10 PM on November 12, 2012

From the description:

"Each year from April to June the cuttlefish off Sydney become extremely aggressive. They often follow divers and sometimes attack them. But they love octopus. I had a repeat experience last year in May, when I again had an octopus come out of its lair to try and take a shiny buckle which was attached to a rope. After a few minutes a cuttlefish attacked the octopus exactly as before. Unfortunately for the cuttlefish, this time the octopus managed to keep half its body free, and after a minute of intense struggle it slipped out of the cuttlefish's grip, and, I kid you not, sat on the cuttlefish's head. So there we were, I am looking at them holding my breath, the octopus is sitting on the cuttlefish's head, and the octopus is looking at me with a "Can you believe it" expression. After another minute of stillness, the octopus shot off in a cloud of ink, leaving the cuttlefish confused and exhausted. Unfortunately I did not have camera handy."
posted by Blasdelb at 2:19 PM on November 12, 2012 [20 favorites]

So basically cuttlefish are assholes, is what I'm saying. ASSHOLES.

Nope, cuttlefish are dicks. And they will TESTIFY on your ass when Granbo starts putting on the screws...
posted by FatherDagon at 2:20 PM on November 12, 2012

At the end of the clip, the cuttlefish approached a something-or-other that turned out to be a tuft of seaweed, but that I really hoped was a bigger cephalopod moving in for the nom. It's cephalopods all the way up!
posted by painquale at 2:28 PM on November 12, 2012

Aw, man. Cephalopods gotta stick together. Not cool.

If all mollusks were united, they would be an influential force in the world.
posted by ovvl at 2:58 PM on November 12, 2012

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship. Unlikely though.
posted by arcticseal at 3:02 PM on November 12, 2012

If all mollusks were united, they would be an influential force in the world.

We're putting a team together,
posted by The Whelk at 3:15 PM on November 12, 2012 [9 favorites]

SQUIDS RULE OTHER CEPHALOPODS SQUIRT DYE CHANGE COLOR EAT SHELLFISH ETC
posted by Mister_A at 3:54 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

So, that was kind of horrifying, like seeing a hapless safari participant getting dragged off by a lion. That thing is intelligent, and presumably still alive. Ack.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:25 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

The sea life was great, but when the diver started speaking, I could only think of poor Tommy.
posted by bicyclefish at 4:44 PM on November 12, 2012

It was pretty awesome when its eyes went blue behind the octopus' head.
posted by Diablevert at 4:49 PM on November 12, 2012

Uh, hello, chromatophores? cuttlefish are basically living LCD displays. Clearly cuttlefish rule, octopi drool.
posted by GuyZero at 4:55 PM on November 12, 2012

Way to make my evening sad. Poor octopussy. RIP in the C.

So basically cuttlefish are assholes, is what I'm saying. ASSHOLES.

Yes. ASSHOLES!


More importantly, though, why does this octopus have access to an entire range of black & decker tools?
posted by elizardbits

Favorited hard!
Because octopi with tools threaten our superior status on this planet.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:57 PM on November 12, 2012

"Help him!" I said.
posted by Trochanter at 5:04 PM on November 12, 2012

I found myself yelling 'He's behind you!'.
posted by unliteral at 5:16 PM on November 12, 2012

> SQUIDS RULE OTHER CEPHALOPODS SQUIRT DYE CHANGE COLOR EAT SHELLFISH ETC

Okay I think I might be going insane but I could not stop trying to read this in the cadence of the Wu-Tang song "C.R.E.A.M" ("cash rules everything around me..." &c)

Like I actually thought it was written with the intention of being read that way and the cadence was just incorrect. It took a while to realize it wasn't meant that way at all.

If for some reason you are having the same stupid brain problem, here is the verse I literally had to write in my head in order to "fix" it before I could move on with my stupid life
SQUIDS RULE CEPHALOPODS AROUND THEM
SQUIRT, CHANGE THE COLOR
EAT A SHELLFISH Y'ALL
posted by churl at 5:19 PM on November 12, 2012 [6 favorites]

That bummed me out. Poor octopus. They have such intelligent, human-like eyes too.

"Although the eyes of the octopus, and of other cephalopods, and the eyes of vertebrates have evolved entirely independently, each has a retina, a cornea, an iris, a lens, and a fluid-filled interior. These similarities of structure, despite different origins, provide a classic example of biological convergence."
posted by Devils Slide at 6:14 PM on November 12, 2012

I just posted a big thing about how the octopus got away, but it was a prior shiny-tropic octopus. Oops.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 7:00 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I am enthralled by both octos and cuttles, and thus am not sure whether to be pleased or horrified by this video.
posted by subbes at 7:07 PM on November 12, 2012

We went to a small aquarium located in the middle of nowhere on the Japan Sea coast recently. There were lots of cool exhibits and tanks of local fish, and they had a little octopus in its own little tank. It looked bored out of its mind, so we interacted with it for a while by tracing our fingers along the tank so it could follow along. Interesting experience.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:07 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

OK, how many people heard "Oh God, what just happened?" and thought that was the voice of the octopus?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:11 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

.
posted by victory_laser at 9:41 PM on November 12, 2012

Also, notice how the octopus shifts to pure white terror when the floating piece of seaweed turns into a mass of grabbing tentacles? That's the best "OH SHI—" reaction I have ever seen.
posted by HFSH at 10:53 PM on November 12, 2012

It's not for nothing that in Dutch, cuttlefish are called seacats, as that was exactly the kind of asshole move your average kitten could've pulled.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:27 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Cuttlefish with garlic. YUM!
posted by Goofyy at 1:08 AM on November 13, 2012

MartinWisse: "It's not for nothing that in Dutch, cuttlefish are called seacats, as that was exactly the kind of asshole move your average kitten could've pulled"

I choose to believe this is why they're called Zeekatten. Look at it's cute little paws!

Wait what...
posted by HFSH at 2:54 AM on November 13, 2012

It's sort of fucked up that after the octopus drops the wrench the technician leans over and places it back within its reach, unintentionally setting the bait for the cuttlefish's trap.
posted by codacorolla at 5:51 AM on November 13, 2012

So this octopus is just hanging out, making interspecies friends, learning about our technology and trying to communicate with us (sadly, we never change our pigmentation in response) when all of a sudden this asshole cuttlefish sneaks up behind it and eats it. Nerds vs. jocks all over, red in tooth and claw and tentacle and chitinous beak.

So basically cuttlefish are assholes, is what I'm saying. ASSHOLES.

Hey, don't look at me, I wasn't there. The only color I turn is a paler shade of white.
posted by Leucistic Cuttlefish at 8:30 AM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yet again the transition begins from sea to land.
posted by vanar sena at 8:55 AM on November 13, 2012

Forget it, Jake. It's Cthulhu Town.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:45 AM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's not for nothing that in Dutch, cuttlefish are called seacats

Well, that has just totally unexpectedly made my day.
posted by SomaSoda at 1:31 PM on November 13, 2012

Oh man. That was kind of terrifying. Well this does reinforce my emotional, non sciency "I would never eat Octopus as they are curious, intelligent and love their children, but I will eat the hell out of some fried calamari. "
posted by mkim at 5:50 PM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]