There's MORE of them!

Some of you may recall that some time ago, we blogged about a cute overload octopus post. Googling for something else entirely unrelated, I have discovered the November 2008 National Geographic article from whence the cute little image came:
Many Octopuses Share Antarctic Ancestors, Research Finds

And there are MORE OF THEM!

Juvenile representatives of the Antarctic and deep-sea genera of octopuses. Clockwise from top left , (1) Pareledone charcoti, a shallow-water species from the Antarctica Peninsula, (2) Thaumeledone gunteri, a deep-water species endemic to South Georgia, (3) Adelieledone polymoprha, a species endemic to the western Antarctic, (4) Megaleledone setebos, a shallow-water circum-Antarctic species endemic to the Southern Ocean.

Photo credit: I. Everson (T. gunteri), M. Rauschert (M. setebos), L. Allcock (P. charcoti, A. polymorpha)

(photo borrowed from blogs.nationalgeographic.com, with original credits)

And a reminder, the contest ends on Saturday, so get those entries in!

Octopus on your back?

A charming illustration by Lois van Baarle, an animation student living the the Netherlands. Stop by her gallery at http://loish.deviantart.com/ where you can also purchase a print of this lovely tentacled fellow.

The Mark of 50 - Contest

Well that was fast! Thanks to everyone who commented, twittered, sent emails to their friends and offices, and in general ran for the 50 follower mark. Honestly ya'll I sort of expected to have some more time to prepare! But don't let that worry you, we're totally ready!

So, as promised, there is a contest, starting now! It will run for a week, ending next Saturday (May 2nd) because I like easy to remember lengths of time.

PRIZES!

An octopus, resin cast from an original sculpture and polished and finished to look like antique ivory. Hung from a red polyester cord tied in a chinese knot. (If you win and are very anti-red, the cord can be replaced with black).







An 8.5" X 11" print of a very unforunate disaster at sea. Printed on velvet art paper, in vibrate 5 color Epson pigment printer inks.

RULES

Prizes will be awarded raffle style, by a random number generator selecting from all the entries. There are multiple ways to enter, depending on how industrious you feel. Please note that if you do not have an email listed in your blogger profile you will need to include some way to contact you in your comment!

• One entry is you: comment here, tell us about your favorite cephalopod and why you love them.
• One entry if you mention us and this contest in your own blog. There's a couple of charming little banners you can use on the side bar, and feel free to borrow the contest banner if you like!
• One entry if you (this one is super fun) draw us a cephalopod and link us to it! We'll put up a lovely little gallery of them, and do a blog post highlighting our favorites. This is silly and fun, and your artistic ability must only be such that you can make marks on paper. circles, with squiggly lines and a smily face are perfectly acceptable!
  

If we reach 50 entries, I'll scrounge around for an additional prize!

Annnnd...GO! Have fun!

Shelagh Power-Chopra of the Cabinet of Curiosities Etsy Team

Cabinet of Curiosities Etsy Team member Shelagh Power-Chopra has some darling sea creatures (including the cuttlefish dandy above) in Almirah, one of her Etsy shops. From the shop description: "Almirah means cupboard in Hindi. This almirah will be filled with many wonderful and strange curiosities along the lines of the wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities..."

Other cephalopods currently for sale include squid and nautilus. You might also wish to visit Power-Chopra's website, Said Objects.

Motivation - Contest At 50 followers

Update: Only 5 more to go, and its only been...what 3 hours? Good show people! (LJ readers, we love you to, we promise!)

In order to motivate you, the masses, to click the follow button and therefore boost our little tentacled egos by your public show of readership, there will be a CONTEST with PRIZES beginning upon the moment we reach 50 public followers.

Additional prizes will probably be added based on the number of people who participate, and the contest will likely be a simple sort of blog contest with some simple comment instructions, and additional entry points given for helpful shameless advertising.

So get to it! Invite your friends, swap your following from private to public, click that follow button for the very first time, or send me a message complaining that you read the LJ feed and can't follow and I'm being entirely unfair! Hop to it folks!

Disclaimer: The images above represent possible prizes, in that they are all things I have in my possession that I have made and can therefore give away. They do not represent the exact prizes, or the only prizes that might be available.

Fleece Tentacles

I'm a sucker for all things soft and snuggly. And Lexi makes some exceptionally snuggly looking cephalopods indeed. Check her out athttp://treesofmachinery.deviantart.com/ and on Etsy.

The Littlest Sea Monster

Wrinkled Hermit on Etsy, in a very unassuming little shop, has this little sea monster for sale. Someone should buy him. He obviously needs a friend.
If I had $20 in my paypal account at this moment...he might be on my wall! But luckily, I don't and you have a chance.

The King of the Ocean

Perhaps you thought that, as a lion is 'king of the jungle' then a shark would perhaps be king of the ocean. Or maybe you bought that whole story about a merman king. Well I'm here to prove you wrong. But you don't have to take my word for it, just stop by King's Fish House in Huntington Beach, California for proof.
The octopus IS King of the Ocean.

Editors note: This reporter has never dined at King's Fish House, and knows nothing about it, other then the fact that she managed to be stopped at a red light, with a camera, beside the sign. Fate indeed.

SquidSoap by Airborne®

"Did you wash your hands?"

"Mm-hmm."

If this conversation seems all too familiar, try Squid Soap! According to their website:
SquidSoap by Airborne^® is designed to teach and train proper hand-washing technique to children. It's the only liquid-soap dispenser with a specially designed pump that stamps a child's hand with vegetable dye. It takes about 20 seconds of thorough hand washing to remove the ink mark, leaving the child with clean hands. So it literally takes the guesswork out of whether or not your kids have washed their hands thoroughly.

Available with an orange, purple or green plastic squid on top.

"Campbell's" by Sergey Steblina

Art by Ukranian srtist Sergey Steblina. See more of his art prints here.