Arm Wrestling with an Octopus
Some things we just know are facts. It's what we like to call "common knowledge". For example, the force of gravity is what causes things to fall to the ground. Or it is the abundance of buttercups in the diet that causes Sasquatch scat to attract yellow crazy ants.
Every once in a while though, some scientist comes along and tries to turn our world upside down by proclaiming an obvious fact to be untrue. One story out of Berlin has a group of aquariums claiming that octopuses have six arms and two legs.
This is completely ridiculous. Eveyone knows that octopuses do not have six arms and two legs. The have EIGHT TENTACLES. I am not sure why people who work at aquariums don't take a moment to look at the octopuses in their aquariums.
Perhaps they did, but someone was playing a practical joke on them and put a pair of trousers on one and then made it look like it was playing cards or something. I can see how this might create the illusion of arms and legs.
It's more likely that someone at the aquarium recognized a need for more publicity, so their marketing guys come up with some outlandish tale of arms and legs on a cephalopod. But why stop here? If we're going to go crazy with cephalopod's let's go all the way!
Squids have tusks and bath themselves in mud and straw to keep cool during the dry season.
Nautiluses can unhinge their jaws and devour jackrabbits like it's their job.
Cuttlefish use gliding wood skis with just the right amount of resistance, a patented flywheel, and cables that give the real "feel" of skiing...and precision adjustments to provide a custom fit to each skier. And when you're done, they fold up easily and can be stored under your bed.
Apparently, these "scientists" use the term "arms" for some tentacles because they are more frequently used to grab things. That's still silly because these are the only tentacles that can reach objects within the field of vision of an octopus. By this logic, a frog's tongue is actually an "arm".
Listen up scientists. I want you to go back in your aquarium and give that octopus a real good look over. Then look at your own arms for a full minute. Then, look at the octopus again. You see what I'm getting at?
Every once in a while though, some scientist comes along and tries to turn our world upside down by proclaiming an obvious fact to be untrue. One story out of Berlin has a group of aquariums claiming that octopuses have six arms and two legs.
This is completely ridiculous. Eveyone knows that octopuses do not have six arms and two legs. The have EIGHT TENTACLES. I am not sure why people who work at aquariums don't take a moment to look at the octopuses in their aquariums.
Perhaps they did, but someone was playing a practical joke on them and put a pair of trousers on one and then made it look like it was playing cards or something. I can see how this might create the illusion of arms and legs.
It's more likely that someone at the aquarium recognized a need for more publicity, so their marketing guys come up with some outlandish tale of arms and legs on a cephalopod. But why stop here? If we're going to go crazy with cephalopod's let's go all the way!
Squids have tusks and bath themselves in mud and straw to keep cool during the dry season.
Nautiluses can unhinge their jaws and devour jackrabbits like it's their job.
Cuttlefish use gliding wood skis with just the right amount of resistance, a patented flywheel, and cables that give the real "feel" of skiing...and precision adjustments to provide a custom fit to each skier. And when you're done, they fold up easily and can be stored under your bed.
Apparently, these "scientists" use the term "arms" for some tentacles because they are more frequently used to grab things. That's still silly because these are the only tentacles that can reach objects within the field of vision of an octopus. By this logic, a frog's tongue is actually an "arm".
Listen up scientists. I want you to go back in your aquarium and give that octopus a real good look over. Then look at your own arms for a full minute. Then, look at the octopus again. You see what I'm getting at?
posted by AaronJLohr | 12:55 PM
|
0 comments
