An octopus, in need of sunscreen

Floating just below the surface of the water near Italy's Mt. Vesuvius, an octopus suns its head lump in this National Geographic Picture of the Day.

Thanks Maggie Fitzgibbon!

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: cephalopods • photo • Science

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E T

Please move before you become calamari!
http://twitter.com/cicadamania Cicada Mania

“head lump”!? Hilarious!
http://www.facebook.com/brianrazencain Brian Cain

What a beautiful image. At first I thought it was a painting.
- http://twitter.com/drewbrews drew froning
  
  I was going to say the exact thing – looks almost unreal, it’ s fantastic.
Dv Revolutionary

Imposing human weakness on animals. Come on he doesn’t need sunscreen. He’s going to live about two years. He’s never going to get skin cancer. Let him sun himself and not worry about sunscreen.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=8629512 Luis Lopez-Garcia
  
  Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of articles and videos showing how amazing octupus/octopuses/octopi are and it kind of bums me out that they only live 6-24 months. Apart from their amazing camouflage, ability to squeeze through tight spaces, shoot ink, shoot a water jet, and inject venom; they are incredibly smart AND they are reasonably capable OUTSIDE of water!
  
  It makes me wonder if their brains’ potential could develop further if they had longer lifespans. (I obviously don’t have a clue if this makes any sense from a scientific stand point).
  - 10xor01
    
    Lucky for us! If they lived much longer, they’d surely team up with the cuttles and enslave humanity.
  - okalokee
    
    “Octo Surprise”: http://nobodyscores.loosenutstudio.com/index.php?id=170
    - http://twitter.com/OhMeadhbh Meadhbh Octopodidae
      
      i for one welcome our new cephalopod overlords.
Lobster

Hee hee. Lump.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski

You should know better than to call that a head lump. How mammal of you.
theophrastvs

It’s just a small case of mantle gas (or “the suds” as the Nickelodeon™ crowd would term it). ..probably had some sea beans for lunch.
AMJ

This is the beginning of the end. Pretty soon they will be walking on land and enslaving humanity!
millie fink

That octopus needs to move its garden to the shade.
Rich Keller

“Octopus garden in the sun” makes so much more sense from a horticultural perspective, doesn’t it?
http://twitter.com/BJNicholls2 BJ Nicholls

The mantle “lump” isn’t the “head” of the octopus. It contains the guts, heart, and gonads. The head’s the part between the tentacles and the mantle.
tristis

I’m mostly amazed at how clear the water is.
- dr
  
  And how still the surface is. Almost the way it would look if an aquarium tank had a large photo of the Italian coastline pasted to its back wall, and a photo was taken through the glass from in front.
Lilah

Holy perspective Batman. Am I the only one who thought that was a giant octopus masquerading as an island to lure unlucky boaters?
Halloween Jack

See also: Lusca from City of Heroes.
http://twitter.com/OhMeadhbh Meadhbh Octopodidae

you know what’s most amazing? not a single cthulhu reference.
Robin Griffiths

It’s an outrage… as Tony Harrison would say.