They swim very differently especially.

A shy little bluering octopus.

Cute comic, but I see no one is talking about how the beetle is drawn wrong. The Mezzanine cover is a stag beetle seen from below at an angle.

An Octopus cyanea reveals itself and launches itself away

2/2 It's hard for us now to view the open sky as the unknown and filled with possibilities. To us, it's thoroughly demystified and feels emptier than space.

One of the cool things about old speculative fiction are these perspectives, things that felt like possibilities at the time but can't be now.

Speaking of early flight reminds me of a 1913 short story that could not have been conceived of now: Horror of the Heights by A. Conan Doyle.

It treats high altitude as a mysterious realm, an ecosystem filled with creatures too transparent and too far up for us to have known of... 1/2

A large Ascarosepion latimanus (broadclub cuttlefish) hanging out at a coral farm as a bunch of oblivious divers pass by #marinelife

Thought it was my connection

Octopus romance! A male Octopus cyanea braves harassment from damselfish to approach a female. #marinelife

A large broadclub cuttlefish, Ascarosepion latimanus, lurking in the remains of a coral farm (mostly wiped out in the heatwave in 2024). You might catch a glimpse of its companion in the distance.

An Octopus cyanea harrassed by territorial damselfish. The octopus is a male who has his eye on a female off screen. He is unwilling to back away but a little hesitant to approach (partially due to looming humans nearby). The damselfish are not happy with an octopus being indecisive on their rock

A sea snake with old skin overgrown with algae, looking like some ancient dragon

I asked to join the #marinelife group and I keep forgetting to share there!

That is an insane set of words to print in a major mainstream newspaper.

They are, but they're extremely chill. Nothing bothers them so they never seem to feel threatened or territorial.

I certainly try not to kick them accidentally, but I feel pretty comfortable around them

Sea snakes can be very curious about people, and sometimes you pick up an unscheduled dive buddy for half the dive

Silhouetted pteropod flapping against the distant sky

Very reminiscent of the various and curiously bulky amphibious mobile suits from the original Gundam.

Trump's whole strategy with Iran was to break the "rules" and kill their leaders. He assumed that would scare everyone else into submission.

Instead Iran said, "No rules? OK, then we'll close the Strait and fling missiles at every oil facility within 2400 miles. How many Patriots you got left?"

Please rise for the national anthem for this proud moment

I think it's bad for the President to threaten to annihilate an entire culture and i do not think you are being alarmist if you take his threats seriously and literally.

It might indeed be some kind of cnidarian. I don't know enough about their diversity, especially considering that they go through diverse forms throughout their life cycles.

Yeah I do see radiolarians all the time - though to be fair I'm no expert on their diversity. But this looks very different from anything I can recognize as a radiolarian colony.

So it looks different from Luidia to me, but I'm very ignorant of the diverse forms that it or any other echinoderms take throughout their life cycle. It might yet be an echinoderm...

I'm fascinated that it's so hard to pin down even its phylum

The photos I've seen of Luidia larvae seem to show a basically complete and distinct miniature starfish attached to a transparent body. But here the head/tentacles seem to blend more smoothly into the body, which is itself much simpler than that of Luidia (it just ends in a rounded bulb).

Thank you!

Squid Universe
#art #illustration #sciart #イラスト #アート #marinelife #watercolor

A Phronima, pelagic amphipod. Living in the carcass of a carved-out salp with her babies

I'm genuinely surprised that James Woods is one of the biggest Twitter accounts.

Also this is why I'm not on Twitter anymore. The character of the site changed noticeably after the purchase. The algorithm massively pushing... the kind of people who would pay Elon to make their tweets more visible