You’ll always be my flamboyant cuddlefish.

At the intersection of aquatic life and the linguistic phenomenon referred to as the glottal stop is my new favorite animal. The cuttlefish. Cuddlefish, as I and all my American intervocalic-R speaking, Midwestern native neighbors would say. Nova had a show featuring the darlings of the
Cephalopod
world. I learned that there’s a species of cuttlefish (not a fish) called the flamboyant cuttle fish and I’m in love. In the show, they had been talking about cuttlefish in general – how they change colors like they’re LED-packed, how they’re smarter than most birds, and how they’re smart possibly because they’ve given up their exterior armor – and then they introduce the flamboyant cuttlefish. Now, they talk about this species with B roll of this super-cute, plump, colorful, kinda-octopus, kinda-plush toy-looking thing that waddled around walking (instead of swimming, like their cuttlefish friends) and I almost fell over. Then they showed how big they were … about an inch long. Eeeeeeee!

Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Here’s some video.

I think I’m going to try making a plush version.

  1. Have we perhaps discovered what shape your daemon would settle upon when you reach adulthood?

  2. Hmmm. I’d be OK with the cuddlefish, if it could magically sit on my shoulder, out of water.

    Otherwise, I’m going to have to learn how to SCUBA. (It’s capitalized because it’s an acronym, not because I mean to emphasize it like a punchline.)

  3. AH! Flamboyant cuttlefish are also my favorite.. well, favorite cuttlefish, favorite sea creature, maybe even favorite ANIMAL OF ALL TIME??!! Yeahhhhh, I’ma dork. Your page rocks, and PLEASE let me know if you make/sell/stumble across a stuffed or plastic version! Though I would happily take the real thing… 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.