07.06.2020
Fun things to read and look at about cuttlefish
^ This is my favorite cuttlefish photo on the whole internet! ^
Isn't it beautiful?
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I first learned about cuttlefish from a documentary on Nova Science Now. But this video here is what made me fall in love with them:
Here is a transcript of it:
❝
Here Are True Facts About The CuttleFish:
The cuttlefish is not a fish. It is a mollusk of the class cephalopoda.
The cuttlefish is a bit like a clam that millions of years ago came out of its shell and never went back.
In fact, it still has a specialized shell, but on its inside,
which is used for buoyancy and is called the cuttlebone.
People for a long time have used this shell to carve casts for metal jewelry.
These people are called "cuttleboners"
by me
and now, by you.
To move through the ocean, the cuttlefish has a wavy-wavy fin that surrounds its mantle.
It also has a siphon, a muscular tube it can squirt water out of for fast propulsion.
Imagine trying to move by vomiting out of a giant straw
and flapping your skirt around very very fast.
That is how a cuttlefish do.
The cuttlefish brain is larger than its entire body
including its brain
which may not make sense, but it does to the cuttlefish,
because it has a very large brain.
The cuttlefish has a very advanced eye
roughly in the shape of Charlie Brown's mouth when he misses a football
or perhaps a W that someone wrote when they were drunk
or the letter Q
that someone wrote when they were really drunk.
Despite its big brain and weird eyes, the cuttlefish is colorblind
which is curious because it is a color magician of the deep!
Like a lactose-intolerant cheesemaker, the cuttlefish is unaware of its own gifts.
With the help of millions of color-changey things in its skin, it can change color and texture almost instantaneously.
Playing hide and seek with a cuttlefish sucks.
They don't move, they just change color. You can hear them breathing while you count.
How the cuttlefish determines the backgrounds it blends into is largely a mystery
because it can do it in complete darkness.
(Which is kind of a dumb gift if you ask me.)
(But still amazing!)
Then there's the flamboyant cuttlefish
which doesn't try to blend in with sh-t.
It just says, "Why doesn't the world try to blend in with me?"
You go, little man. Don't go changin' for nobody.
When it is threatened, the cuttlefish will often release ink from its ink sac.
The cuttlefish releases that ink in one of two ways:
One is a little priffing sort of squirt. Something you might say "excuse me" after.
The second is a release of both ink and mucus. More of a "throw your underwear out and go home early" sort of inking.
These are called pseudomorphs, and are designed to be decoys for the cuttlefish as it escapes.
The cuttlefish feeds by extending two hidden feeding tentacles which it uses to snag prey and pull it back towards its poison beak.
What?
Well, apparently it has a beak.
Cuttlefish mating begins when the male delicately grabs the female by the face and inserts another specialized tentacle into an opening near her mouth,
which I hope is not her nose,
and inserts sperm sacs.
Males have four pairs of arms and females have three.
Weaker males often disguise themselves as females by hiding two of their arms!
(This reminds me of what I may or may not have done in the mirror as a young boy.)
These cleverly disguised males swim right past the competition and do the face sex thing.
After the female eggs are fertilized,
she gingerly and lovingly puts her eggs in some random friggin' hole on the bottom of the ocean.
The eggs are called sea grapes
by people who like sh-tty wine
and they are guarded by the couple until they hatch
into the cutest little freaks in the universe.
These little bebes are not so good at the camouflage
but they do the best that they can.
Cover yourself up, little man, and sleep tight.
Remember:
if you ever want to come out of your shell
and let your freak flag fly,
the cuttlefish has your back.
Or front. I don't know, I can't tell with them what's front and what's back.
Point is, don't let the tentacle parts wrap around your head.
Or if it happens, plug your nose.
'Cause your nose might get pregnant.
❞
This is basically my favorite poem.
In 2020, I started making "diary comics" using a little anthropomorphic cuttlefish kid that represented me. There were a lot of other comic strips like this out there, like Incendavery and a few different "animal heads" art projects. I kind of thought that if I kept at it long enough, I too could become a famous instagram comic artist without really trying. That did not happen. I eventually got tired of making them.
Now that I'm looking back at the comics I posted (on tumblr) in 2020, which at the time I thought were at the very least kind of cringe, I'm actually feeling a lot prouder of (some of) them than I thought I would be at this point. The rest of this page is a collection of all the cuttlefish comics I posted on tumblr, in chronological order.
07.06.2020
07.07.2020
07.08.2020
I missed orientation. Oop
07.11.2020
07.12.2020
digitalization of 07.12.2020 just cause I can
08.02.2020
This isn’t an allegory or anything. The amount of spiderwebs I walked into this week is just unprecedented.
08.03.2020
If you see this I want you to watch Immigration Nation, take a break from social media, and start a neighborhood commune.
08.04.2020
I’ve finally learned to stop complaining so much lmaoooo
My friends lift me up and humble me too.
08.06.2020
The month is going by fast…
You know those people that always have something to criticize about you? That’s me. For myself(?)
I think I might try to make a better one later actually. This one’s not great.
08.06.2020 part 2
This comic is equally shitty, but in a way I’m okay with.
08.07.2020
gummi
I asked my sibling what the comic should be about, they said “when you go into a 7/11 and everyone else there is buying actual food but you’re just there for candy, and you’re 17.”
Basically high school.
08.10.2020
I legit don’t know why mr cuttlefish is always 😔. Might be the eyes.
08.11.2020
It’s hard making things autobiographical when people you know in real life look at this page.
I think I need some more creative ideas.
10.27.2020
you guys ever read those Gary Larson cartoons?
12.14.2020
Woman Name Band
12.28.2020
🐙