Nautiluses eating

This photo comes from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It show a school (?) of nautiluses devouring some chicken. Allen owns a large yacht called the Octopus, which has a couple of ROVs on board. This photo was taken by one of the ROVs at a depth of 876 feet, near the Pacific island of Palau.

They look positively Zoidbergian, don't they?

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: animals • oceans • rich dudes get to do cool stuff • Science

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chellberty

In recent years Paul Allen has revealed himself to be a massive patent troll. It is kind of sad really. Nicely framed picture though.
- zarray
  
  Hopefully he’ll troll MS, get punched in the face by Balmer, then Balmer will find out what’s really going on and punch Allen in the face in earnest.
freshacconci

I don’t know if I find this cute or unsettling.
- msbpodcast
  
  I’m with you. I know that they eat (chicken of the sea?:-) ) but I’d rather not have to disturb them while they’re at it.
guanto

So… they discovered submarine chickens that live at a depth of 876 feet?
Andrew Singleton

Nautiloi?
fuzzbo

Zoidbergian? You decide…

http://youtu.be/-52R32_nV_w
http://www.wanderinglulu.com Ewanglee

Look, they are sharing. Community minded creatures. Not like humans.
- suburbanhick
  
  Tell you what; the next time I find some chicken on the ocean floor, you’re welcome to all you’d like, okay?
- phisrow
  
  If you were a betentacled extension of an eldrich hive mind older than sanity, you’d share too.
suburbanhick

That looks unsettlingly like my former co-workers around a box of doughnuts….
http://twitter.com/BonzoDog1 BonzoDog1

The collective noun for nautiluses is “a nemo.”
- http://twitter.com/blindeschildpad Blinde Schildpad
  
  Judging from this picture it should probably a ‘conspiracy’.
jaytkay

a school (?) of nautiluses devouring some CHILDREN!

Oh, wait, I read that wrong. Never mind, keep calm and carrion.
jeligula

Mmmmm. What is this delicious meat that has no place in this ecosphere? These poor nautiluses. They are going to be roaming the ocean floor, obsessively looking for something that doesn’t exist. Paul Allen: ruining lives for a photo op since 1976.
- zarray
  
  They’re probably thinking this seagull tastes kinda funny but goooood.
10xor01

Totally agree. Shame on Paul Allen. Maybe he should consider donating his yacht and personal sub to some scientists who will use it for something more meaningful than their own amusement.
- Tunacorn
  
  He actually donates quite a bit for science… millions and millions of dollars.
  - EH
    
    Yeah, but I have a problem with him so his money is worthless.
    - 10xor01
      
      He’s pledged to donate most of his wealth after his death, so good on him for that. But his yacht cost $200 million to build, and has a $20 million operating budget.
      
      He purchases carbon offsets for the yacht, but even so, $200 million seems grossly excessive to me. You can buy a helluva ship for one tenth that much, and do something useful with the rest.
      - guanto
        
        And now think about how many people were employed at the shipyard for how long thanks to him commissioning a yacht for $200 million. Spending massive amounts of money is about the best thing rich folks can do. You should rather be angry at people keeping their wealth in some trust fund without any real benefit for the economy.
      - UFIA
        
        Paul Allen has not one, but two of the worlds 100 largest yachts.
        
        The Octopus has not one, but two submarines , and not one, but two helicopters and and heli-pads.
        
        It’s 63-foot (19 m) tender, custom built to berth in the ships transom is bigger than most millionaires yachts.
        
        I don’t live in Palau, but I see the Octopus from my living room windows every once in awhile.
        
        The view is better, looking out of that ship, at my house.
        
        You can’t buy taste.
        
        Nice picture of Nautili.
        Too bad they were sucked up into the engines cooling system when they left anchorage.
      - UFIA
        
        guanto, in 2003 the ships builder HDW let go of 750 workers, 20% of their labor force, after delivering Paul’s toy.
      - guanto
        
        That’s a really nice way to put it.
        
        Let me rephrase that: ship builder HDW employed 750 people (highly qualified engineers and workers) for many months for the express purpose of building Allen’s ship.
        
        (I still can’t think of a better way to spend excess money than feeding it back into the economy. That’s how qualified jobs are created and how, indeed, new money and wealth for others is generated. I just don’t get the anti-luxury-spending vibe lately.)
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Maybe he should consider donating his yacht and personal sub to some scientists who will use it for something more meaningful than their own amusement.
  
  Just like you could donate your computer to a school in the Third World.
  - 10xor01
    
    Sure, and if like Paul Allen’s yacht, my computer is the most expensive in the world, like maybe this one:
    
    http://www.gizmag.com/go/7030/
    
    then I certainly should.
    
    Granted, building and running this behemoth creates a number jobs. But surely not as many as any number of other projects would. And yes, hoarding cash is worse, since it does little for anyone.
    
    I just find it excessive for anyone, even a multi-billionaire, to own a $200 million boat.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      According to Wikipedia, his foundation has given $428,000,000 to charity since 1990. His vessels also host oceanographic and atmospheric monitoring systems, so unless he’s living on one, it’s probably doing more science than partying.
- UFIA
  
  Science can’t afford to operate that thing.
theophrastvs

In the admittedly rarefied zone of billionaires, Paul Allen is most certainly not among yer typical plutocratic shadowy forces of evil. That is, he’s closer to Buffet than Bezos. (search on “Paul Allen” and charity, versus some other billionaires you know (n’ love))
lavardera

and how did the chicken get down there? Not another Crown?
allium

So that’s what an Elder Sign looks like.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Burns/845868306 Sean Burns

Chicken! Wonder what it tasted like?
TheMarchingMorons

Chicken? What’s next, feeding them ham?
penguinchris

Nautiluses are one of my favorites. But while I’m sure feeding them chicken isn’t that bad and won’t scar them for life, it does still rub me the wrong way.
AirPillo

Why not nautilus?
- rattypilgrim
  
  I like “nautili” better.
http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC

This dude has ROVs on his yacht? Is he going to steal some nuclear weapons or start a war between two superpowers or something?
- Judas Peckerwood
  
  The dude has multiple ROVs on his yacht and he still has to feed the wildlife to get a shot. That’s just plain lame.
voiceinthedistance

Sure, the official line is that they are eating “chicken”, but my money is on this being a photo of the nautiluses enjoying a sumptuous meal of Royal Squab. I’d be surprised if Paul Allen settled for anything else.
Daemonworks

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn!
ROSSINDETROIT

I don’t care about Paul Allen or chickens. This is an awesome photo of six nautiloids, one of the most alien looking and ancient things on Earth.
- zuben
  
  I think there is a seventh nautiloid in that image. What’s troubling is I can’t stop looking at them.
Frank Diekman

Lead nautilus: “You came to the wrong neighborhood, motherfucker!”
Robert Cruickshank

Dear internets. We need a version of the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo, with a Zoidbergian Colonel Sanders, or Col. Sanders leading a nautilus on a leash, or something like that.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Gus-Mueller/1126894782 Gus Mueller

creationists should note the nautiloid eye. it is basically a pinhole camera open to the ocean through a narrow aperture. there is no lens. it represents an intermediate step between a light cup and a lensed eye. creationists are fond of saying that a “partial eye” would never evolve. well, here you are.
- Judas Peckerwood
  
  You are SO going to Hell for pointing that out.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!!
- mike150160
  
  Actually, I’m not sure you can consider the nautiloid eye as an intermediate to a lensed eye. I think in Dawkin’s “climbing mount improbable” it was suggested there was no way of getting to the lens without reducing the fitness of the pinhole.
feltmountain

Thanks for the nightmares.
MajorMattMason

As Jack Handey once said, “It makes me mad when I go to all the trouble of having Martha cook up about a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at the Marineland says, “You can’t throw chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish.” Sure they eat fish, if that’s all you give them. Man, wise up.”
timquinn

Hello? Pixels . . . I can tell . . . OBVIOUS!
http://www.facebook.com/teleny Alissa Mower Clough

They…have…eyes….
http://profile.yahoo.com/O2G5ZK7O7CCK4SJSRQFL5RKC7U Thomas McCarthy

Where’s the chicken? Where’s the pin hole of an eye? Is it that black dot? Are we expected to accept merely by suggestion? Is this an April fool’s day prank?
zuben

Dunno. While the others seem hypnotized as they try to make sense of just what it is they’re eating actually tastes like, the one in the back is sneaking a shifty glance at its unsuspecting neighbor.. Not too sure the chicken was all that was for dinner for that one.

Also, is that a baby nautilus at 11 o’clock partaking in this pagan ritual?
fr4nk

If it’s greasy fried chicken, can they jet around faster than normal from the increased gas production?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kelsey-Jean-Woodward/100000072823173 Kelsey Jean Woodward

The deep sea episode on planet earth has one of the greatest scenes of deep sea animals devouring a whale carcass.
chupsahey

TELL THEM I HATE THEM
apoxia

“nautiloids”
- UFIA
  
  Nautiloids are a large group of marine cephalopods.
  On the picture you can see a small group of Nautili.
http://twitter.com/mahoggin Michael McFarlin

Does this remind anyone else of the Ood?
EH

I believe that should read, “axe to the face…”