Post Your Pets!

The Something Awful Forums > Main > BYOB: BYOB BYOB BOYB BBOY YOBB YBOB BBYO?? > Post Your Pets!

«‹›99 »

cruft

Stoner Sloth posted:

through their minds

Touché.

(Don't they have one brain per leg?)

# ? Sep 3, 2021 02:25

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 24, 2024 19:11

Stoner Sloth

xcheopis posted:

"Soon... soon"

i for one welcome our new octopus overlords, they can't do any worse of a job

cruft posted:

Touché.

(Don't they have one brain per leg?)

i think it depends mostly on your definition of 'brain' - like they have a central 'brain' analogous to ours that likely is associated with sentience/sapience but then also sorta neural clusters or ganglions - at the base of each arm.

i'd suggest this might be analogous to the 'second brain' that pop science was banging about for ages in humans guts, or the idea that large dinosaurs had two brains... i'm not sure it's so much a brain as a sort of networked cluster for processing certain signals and to possibly enable quicker reactions.

my issue with calling it a brain is that implies sentience or sapience to it which i'm not sure it has and if you do that for octopus you'd also have to say that most things have multiple brains

that said we really don't know and may never know exactly how any 'mind' of an octopus works and it may be very different to our own or alternatively surprisingly similar due to convergent evolution.

in any case though the central brain of an octopus is relatively large for an invertebrate on it's own* and also only makes up about a third of their neurons cause of their distributed network of 'brains'!

*relative to size and still less brain size to weight ratio than most veterbrates

# ? Sep 3, 2021 09:22

Stoner Sloth

lol sorry if that was boring or rambly

anyways please post more awesome pets friends! the pics so far have been so great :3:

# ? Sep 3, 2021 09:23

cruft

Stoner Sloth posted:

lol sorry if that was boring or rambly

anyways please post more awesome pets friends! the pics so far have been so great

That was 100% exactly what I needed to wake up to. I love it when somebody passionate about a subject starts explaining an aspect of it. Love love love.

Thank you!

# ? Sep 3, 2021 13:21

Viginti Septem: Oculus Noctuae

If I had an Octopus I'd name it Eightpus.

# ? Sep 3, 2021 14:03

biosterous

Stoner Sloth posted:

but would agree about the octopus being intelligent underwater aliens - you wonder what goes through their minds when they're watching us

xcheopis posted:

"Soon... soon"

see this is basically why i Do Not Like cephalopods, they look unsettling and they think unsettling. spouse likes cephalopods a lot though, so i make sure to pass on any rad facts (which is also a way to get thoughts about them out of my brain, bonus!)

^{^{thank you saoshyant for this sig!!!}}
^{^{gallery of sigs}}

he/him

# ? Sep 3, 2021 15:45

cruft

biosterous posted:

see this is basically why i Do Not Like cephalopods, they look unsettling and they think unsettling. spouse likes cephalopods a lot though, so i make sure to pass on any rad facts (which is also a way to get thoughts about them out of my brain, bonus!)

# ? Sep 3, 2021 15:49

Stoner Sloth

cruft posted:

That was 100% exactly what I needed to wake up to. I love it when somebody passionate about a subject starts explaining an aspect of it. Love love love.

Thank you!

any time my friend! :love:

biosterous posted:

see this is basically why i Do Not Like cephalopods, they look unsettling and they think unsettling. spouse likes cephalopods a lot though, so i make sure to pass on any rad facts (which is also a way to get thoughts about them out of my brain, bonus!)

really i think they just have a combination of bad pr (cthulu, ryan north :argh:

j/k, toilers of the sea, etc) and that whole alien nature of them

once you get to know them though they're really cool, often inquisitive and even playful - i've encountered a few big common octopus when diving and they're always slightly weary of us but very interested and occasionally you can get to interact up close with them. along with clownfish and moray eels i'd rate them as some of the sea life that seems most interested in us other than mammals

# ? Sep 3, 2021 16:00

cruft

I once talked with a guy who was convinced that if octopuses lived as long as humans, they would have built cities and we might be trading with them.

# ? Sep 3, 2021 16:23

Stoner Sloth

cruft posted:

I once talked with a guy who was convinced that if octopuses lived as long as humans, they would have built cities and we might be trading with them.

haha... well who knows but way I see it there's a few problems with them developing in that direction.

the first is that they're not really communal animals. this isn't an insurmountable barrier necessarily - one way in which they might start to become social or even eusocial is if they started permanent nest sites and instead of spreading out clustered there in order to defend it and their offspring. they already have some traits that would adapt them towards this but... they've been around a long time and it hasn't happened yet (as far as we know)

a second is that as far as communication goes they might be limited when it comes to sound. again this isn't necessarily insurmountable, at the very least many social animals don't require it. however it might limit any such culture developing all that far as it's harder to imagine parsing more complex language in just, for example, displays of colours. not impossible.

perhaps the most insurmountable barrier would be fire - without that it'd be hard to see how they advance beyond a fairly primitive culture since much chemistry, the use of metals, more advanced tools, etc would be denied to them. it's perhaps just possible to imagine them eventually exploiting sources of underwater heat without being cooked by it but even then that would limit their use of it and speed of development and advancement

ultimately it's hard to say if it's possible for them to develop in such a way but from our own perspective they'd be hard pressed to get past these obstalces - it's not necessarily ruled out but again the fact that octopus have been around some 500 million years suggest that at the very least the precise combination of selective factors that might push them into this is rare

lifespan probably isn't a major deal - that could more easily be increased, indeed at least one species is capable of breeding multiple times and some of the large octopus can live for five to six years already. the main factor that appears to limit them in that regard is due to hormones from the optic gland causing their digestive glands to cease functioning. this may be due to an evolutionary benefit in preventing overpopulation in their local area or, more likely in my opinion, a way of putting more energy into rapid reproduction. either way it's not something that would appear to be difficult to evolve away from

# ? Sep 3, 2021 16:42

more falafel please: forums poster

cruft posted:

god i love dino comics. it completely pegs me as a specific age range of geriatric millenial but i've been reading it every day for like 15 years

thanks Saoshyant and nesamdoom for the sigs!

# ? Sep 3, 2021 16:49

cruft

cruft posted:

I just realized that stoner sloth's av is part octopus.

lol yeah octosloth smoking a blunt and reading a book - yobs were nice enough to make it for me when i first came to the forums

# ? Sep 3, 2021 16:54

Manifisto

Stoner Sloth posted:

lol George got out and into the tank below his and ate someone's grad project

lol

ty nesamdoom!

# ? Sep 3, 2021 18:41

biosterous

cruft posted:

i rocked the old "we were not meant to be [picture of octopus]" t-shirt for a while yeah!

^{^{thank you saoshyant for this sig!!!}}
^{^{gallery of sigs}}

he/him

# ? Sep 3, 2021 23:51

Ass-penny

hello t-rex

I love dinosaur comics but I haven't kept up with them.

# ? Sep 4, 2021 01:36

Arsenic Lupin: This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator.

We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

# ? Sep 4, 2021 03:40

xcheopis

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator. We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

Everywhere, everyone is red and green
I gotta lust for glory and a tape machine
I'm living out Frank Coppola's dreams
Outta my mind, I'm feelin' mean

# ? Sep 4, 2021 04:05

City of Glompton

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator. We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

beautiful kittens, how lucky

# ? Sep 4, 2021 04:14

Stoner Sloth

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator. We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

sorry for your loss :sympathy:

thamk you for posting these two beauties though :3:

please give them each extra scritches from me!

# ? Sep 4, 2021 04:15

Code Jockey: 69420 basic bytes free

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator. We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

I'm sorry you lost your kitty, I know that feeling. :glomp:

These are some beautiful kittens though and Byakko's expression is cracking me up for some reason

# ? Sep 4, 2021 04:30

Ass-penny

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Friday thread is closed, so I can't update the saga of Diana and Byakko. We adopted them three weeks ago, after our last cat escaped outside and was almost certainly killed by a predator. We are being superduper careful to keep these two inside at all costs.

Byakko and Diana. Byakko is the brindled Manx; Diana is the sleepy black one. They're both kittens; Byakko is three weeks older than Diana. Even accounting for that, Byakko is more cobby in build.

Sorry for your loss, that's rough.

Thank you for bringing these Friday cats to BYOB, good to see them growing up.

# ? Sep 4, 2021 04:34