![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/")
octopus overlords by Peter Darbyshire.
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
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.
- Science Daily: Astonishing Life In Ocean’s Depths: Major Progress Made Towards Historic Census Of Marine Life
- National Geo: “Smile” Octopus Spawned Many Species
- Oceana: 4 Cool Findings from the Census
- Deep Sea News: Deep octopus has shallow ancestor
- BBC: Octopuses share ‘living ancestor’
- Sea Notes: Ocean Mysteries Revealed
- Ectoplasmosis: ALPHAPUS
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:
Excellent post, and nice new look!
Also, seeing the word ‘inkling’ above just gave me an idea: you could start a second blog aimed just at kids and call it The Inkling.
Karen - Thanks! Inklings sounds like a fun idea, but I hope kids and parents find this blog PG enough to enjoy already. Also, in the US there are rules for creating Web sites targeted at children 13 and under, more than I want to deal with as a hobby blogger.
Plus the name Inkling is already associated with this fab bunch of boys and these rad group of girls.
as you can see i’ve been keeping them company while they’re waiting…
Angela - Amusing.
Do you know the original source for the octopus image? I reckon if Peter Darbyshire did not have permission to use it, he can’t rightly offer his derivative work under a Creative Commons licenses and that makes me something of a schmuck for linking to him.