Monday, June 15, 2009

Heeey, you're not the bus driver!

As if cephalopods weren't creepy enough with their boneless, slimy, ink-squirting, shape-shifting, and sometimes monstrously proportioned bodies, scientists have recently discovered that they can also hear. It may be used for detected predators, prey, or possibly just for picking up reggae stations from Jamaica. Whatever they use it for, I am still worried. If octopi and squid are as intelligent as they seem, and they can change shape and color at will, with the ability to hear it is only a matter of time before they venture on land and begin infiltrating our society.
I don't think they would do much at first but listen, since it appears they have the ability. Mimic octupi can copy the attributes of many other animals, so it would only be a matter of time before they master our languages. They will have stumbling blocks, of course. They don't last long outside of water, but they have the ability to evolve. They can hide in water anywhere, so they can made due for now.
Oh, sure, they can look all cute and harmless in an aquarium, catching bits of dead fish and squeezing through tiny holes, but what if those holes were your vents and those bits of fish your eyeballs? They're crafty animals, I wouldn't put anything past them.
Next time you get on a city bus or go down to your local butcher and the driver or proprietor don't quite look the same, watch out, or you could get a face full of ink and the next thing you know you're hogtied at the bottom of an aquarium, an eight-limbed creature glaring at you from above. Don't say you haven't been warned.

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