The Christmas siphonophore pays a visit
From Pink Tentacle, this video of "a bioluminescent deep-sea siphonophore — an eerily fantastic creature that appears to be a single, large organism, but which is actually a colony of numerous individual jellyfish-like animals that behave and function together as a single entity."
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they look great when you string them from smoker stack to stack.
It's a C'thulhumas tree!
In the likeness of the Noodley one floating about and bringing Chrisfmas cheer, ramen!
In no way do I welcome our gooey, multi-tentacled overlord(s).
tak, that's downright cannabalistic!
I never liked that branch of the family anyways.
A useful conspiracy amongst these creatures...to make it appear that there's just one creature.
Looks like a Gilhooly (spelling!) glasswork gone mobile...
Polymorphously perverted! if yer that way inclined...
welcome to Bjork's next video
my favorite part about this creature is its taste for trippy music.
"Chihuly" , Ugly;
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ETJhw9_B_X4
Thanks Tak for link. It does look similar, does it not?
Okay, I'll be the one to say that this is why I read the BoingBoing feed.
This is cool as hell and creepy all at the same time - THIS is a wonderful thing.
(Love the expressions of people watching the video down in the corner, too...WTF? EEEWWWWW....KEWL)
It's a Festivus miracle!
Awesome. And thanks BBteam for working so close to Christmas for all us working slobs who ate up all our vacation time for Comic Con!
Mark, I ordered my first thing from Maker Shed. The ThingamaKIT for my girlfriend. She has never put any sort of electronic thing together, but I can tell she's the kind of person who's going to love making it as much (or more) than fooling with it once it's done. Can't wait to teach her to solder over the Christmas break! HEATHKIT MEMORIES!!!!
Can you eat 'em? I don't think I've eaten anything bioluminescent yet.
Someone please tell me this video wasn't from a cooking show.
I work with siphonophores and have more information on these fun animals at http://siphonophores.org
Individuals that self organize and display complex behavior reminiscent of higher order organisms and yet retain their individuality. Humans couldn't possibly do the same thing could they? Nawwww... that's crazy talk.
The true masters of this planet are the unicellular organisms. We multicellulars are just their own portable ecosystem.
Well the plankton do seem to control our oxygen supply.
and don't you forget it!
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fthagn!
That's pretty wild. Drew's comment @17 sums-up what some of my friends would likely say upon seeing that.
What's that food show with the adventurous guy who travels the world and eats all kinds of unusual stuff? I could imagine him chowing-down on siphonophore, then trying to explain in positive terms what it tastes like. XD
@23 Dammit Daemon. You beat me to the punch :D ...have to wonder if Lovecraft was directly inspired by something like this.
Comment threads like this one are why I read Boing Boing. Merry Christmas people - you make me happy to be a geek :)
http://xkcd.com/520/
Anything that doesn't escape first is my food rule. Then again, I don't really want to eat bugs, but most sea creatures I've tried are tasty. Just not the sea urchin - DO NOT WANT.
The accompanying music is amazing. Like if the band from Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster got really into both Slowdive and Can.