science edu + ocean info / gelatinous for the masses
![Carnival Of The Blue logo, a blue sphere half-filled with water. [100x100, 7K]](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1148/531775421_125285bc74_t.jpg "Carnival Of The Blue")
Carnival of the Blue #20 is now available for your consideration over at The Biomes Blog. Mark H is Internet famous for his monthly marine life series over at the Daily Kos and it’s one of my favorite regular reads.
For a list of past Carnivals, visit the mothersite. Next month’s festivities will be hosted at a blog to be determinedThe Oyster’s Garter. Mark Powell is currently soliciting host for 2009 and if you would like to host a CotB this year, sign up before the slots are all gone.
We stopped by this rainforest canopy lodge. While the amenities look incredible, the $3000 fee per night is more than a bit out of our range.
Just some Christmas day images from my trip to Belize.
Literally twittering from the Miami International Airport. Seems several bedraggled finches make terminal C their home.
I know how much many of you like the snow, and it looks like much of the United States will enjoy a white Christmas this year. While you warm your chestnuts, I will be heading down to Central America for the holidays to visit with family. But I hope to share as much of the tropical heat with you as I can. As time and wifi allow, I will upload updates from the field.
One of the destinations is the vista pictured here. The plan is to spend Christmas near the mountains of the Sleeping Giant in central Belize. The range is so-called because in person it really does look like a large man in repose (but maybe not so much in the picture). That is his brow, nose and chin to the right and his heaving chest in the center.
I may also get a chance to go diving too and still hold out hope of spotting the elusive Cozumel toadfish (Sanopus johnsoni) someday. It truly is a splendid looking creature in photographs and Belize is supposed to be the right place to look.
In case I don’t get to update soon, here is wishing all you fine readers a Happy Cephalopodmas, Merry Fishmas, Splendid Squidmas, a Heebo Tarvu Day, Happy Monkey, Happy Holothuriday, and a Scintillating Solstice (remember, axial tilt is the reason for the seasons)!
![Gibbous Cephalopodmas! [300x300, 16K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/cephalopodmas.gif)
Today is the day to get your special squamous someone something fetid! December 22 isn’t just for celebrating the solstice anymore. It is also Cephalopodmas! You can sing along with the lyrics to the thirteen days of Cephalopodmas (below) or check out A Very Scary Solstice and other seasonal selections from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society.
Or get a Cephalopodmas ornament from Noadi (while they last).
On the thirteenth day of Cephalopodmas,
Cthulhu gave to me
Thirteen Hapalochlaena,
Twelve ink sacs squirting,
Eleven Architeuthis,
Ten ammonites,
Nine tentacles strangling,
Vampyroteuthis infernalis,
Seven photophores a-flashing,
Six arms a-flaying,
Grimpoteuthis,
Four snapping beaks,
Three suckers,
Two cuttlefish,
And Histioteuthis heteropsis.
More lyrics…
You can also celebrate with giant squids, pterodactyls and bumps.
More celebrations:
As the Internet meme of yesteryear, 7 Seconds of Love still grossly amuses me. Here is their YouTube ode to kelp:
![Pucker and Bloat web comic by Jason Robertshaw [500x324, 136K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3275/3094930958_8f0e2f7e93.jpg)
Hi ho, the Pucker and the Bloat return with Seasons Greetings. But as you can see, the War on Squidmas continues even into the briny deeps. But Pucker has done his ecumenical best to cheer his pal Bloat and so too, whether you are a Pastafarian or Spewish, celebrate Squidmass, Cephalopodmass or Fishmess, here’s hoping for good things for you and yours in the coming years. May all your growth rings be bright. Happy Holothuridays!
.![The Cephalopod Tea Party Web badge, antiqued gold letter on a navy field [200x58, 20K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/ctp-button-lrg.png "The Cephalopod Tea Party, steampunk octo culture with a side of Etsy arts")
If you ♥♥♥ cephalopods like I ♥♥♥ cephalopods, you might consider joining the Cephalopod Tea Party. Like many a brave cephaloblog before it, this one fathoms the depths of of the interwebs “for all things octopus-ish, squidly, and tentacled for your enjoyment.” And as you might expect, they are not afraid to serve a bit of steampunked sea biscuit alongside their Darjeelings.
Carnival of the Blue #19 is now available for your consideration over at WaterNotes. WaterNotes is one of my favorite blog discoveries of 2008, often focusing on marine conservation and environmental education from central Florida’s Indian River Lagoon. Many of the entries in this month’s cavalcade of compositions are concerned with seafood, including my own contribution.
Next month’s festivities will be hosted at Biomes Blog. For a list of past Carnivals, visit the mothersite.
Not-so-black beginning to my post-Thanksgiving Friday.
![eFest banner showing the logo over a blue sky and green grass [165x165, 20K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/efest-165x165banner.jpg "efest.us: Florida's Green Living Music and Arts Festival, November 15-16, 2008, Sarasota Polo Club at Lakewood Ranch")
It is eFest time again. If you live in the greater Tampa Bay area of Florida, grab some granola and consider stopping by this annual event. I expect to be there with a little bit of moblogging coverage too.
eFest.us: Florida’s Green Living Music and Arts Festival, November 15-16, 2008, Sarasota Polo Club at Lakewood Ranch
On October 31st, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Ocean Services (NOS) Communications and Education Division (CED) launched a weekly “podcast” called Making Waves. The program offers highlights to current activities, recent discoveries, and other happenings around NOS. So far there are two episodes out, each around seven minutes long and they promise to launch a new one each Friday.
Unfortunately, their RSS does not seem to include enclosures for their audio files, so I cannot automatically subscribe to it in iTunes. To listen, I have to actually visit the page and manually download the mp3 files. That’s kind of a pain, so let me know if it works differently for you.
So what is the NOAA NOS? It is part of the US Department of Commerce and is one of the agencies responsible for managing America’s “95,000 miles of shoreline and 3.5 million square miles of coastal, Great Lakes, and deep-ocean waters.” It is is composed of eight program and two staff offices, including the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS). Still unsure about what NOS does? Then listen to their new audio program to learn more. 
NOS is not the only NOAA podcast floating around out there. WeirdFins is a NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) podcast about some of the strange creatures that live in the sea. Each audio program is about two minutes long and their RSS appears to be valid. NOAA’s Office of Exploration also regularly publishes audio and video podcasts during their expeditions and you can subscribe to them here.
November 12 is the 38th anniversary of the infamous exploding whale incident. Not sure how you celebrate this one without blubbering. From Wikipedia:
Exploding whales have been documented on two notable occasions, as well as several lesser-known ones. The most famous explosion occurred in the United States at Florence, Oregon, in 1970, when a dead sperm whale (originally reported to be a gray whale) was blown up by the Oregon Highway Division in an attempt to dispose of its rotting carcass. This incident became famous in the U.S. when American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column after viewing a videotape of television footage of the explosion. It later became well-known internationally when the same footage circulated on the Internet.
Related Links:
![Three panel comic featuring a photo of a slowly ascending octopus and the caption: For eons we waited...patiently...for the ice caps to melt... [500x149, 36K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/octopusoverlords-peterdarbyshiredotcom1.jpg "octopus overlords, by Peter Darbyshite, shrapnel.wordpress.com/octopus-overlords/")
The Interwebs are brimming with reports from The Census of Marine Life about cephalopod ancestors mucking about around Antarctica. They believe that the shallow-water cephalopod, Megaleledone setebos, is an evolutionary link to many of the world’s other deep-sea octopuses. The CoML press release was just released, but judging from the pub date of the Shrapnel cartoon above (February 21, 2008), Peter Barbyshire must have had an inkling of what was to come.
The census continues through 2010, and the CoML Web site is a evolving wealth of information. But as Sarah notes, while they are deep in the midst of discovery, it make take some time to make it all classroom friendly.
Of course, cephalopods have a lineage that goes much farther back than Megaleledone setebos. Christopher Taylor recently posted a couple of nice entries on cephalopod early evolution:
Jason Robertshaw
pulpodcast [at] gmail . com 
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