"Argonaut" Octopus Sucks Air Into Shell As Ballast

audiovideodisco writes "Even among octopuses, the Argonaut must be one of the coolest. It gets its nickname — 'paper nautilus' — from the fragile shell the female assembles around herself after mating with the tiny male (whose tentacle/penis breaks off and remains in the female). For millennia, people have wondered what the shell was for; Aristotle thought the octopus used it as a boat and its tentacles as oars and sails. Now scientists who managed to study Argonauts in the wild confirm a different hypothesis: that the octopus sucks air into its shell and uses it for ballast as it weaves its way through the ocean like a tiny submarine. The researchers' beautiful video and photographs show just how the Argonaut pulls off this trick. The regular (non-paper) nautilus also uses its shell for ballast, but the distant relationship between it and all octopuses suggests this is a case of convergent evolution."

Comments

Efficient riding of the EAC, dude.

[masterwit]

Crush: Okay. Squirt here will now give you a rundown of proper exiting technique.

Squirt: Good afternoon. We're gonna have a great jump today. Okay, first crank a hard cutback as you hit the wall. There's a screaming bottom curve, so watch out. Remember: rip it, roll it, and punch it.

Marlin: It's like he's trying to speak to me, I know it.

[to Squirt]

Marlin: Look, you're really cute, but I can't understand what you're saying. Say the first thing again.

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I love Finding Nemo, with the whole "catching of currents" this sadly was the first thing to cross my mind :)