(no subject)
Today's topic: SQUID FACE
So what bugs me about squids (besides, like, everything) is that I never know where the face is. This sounds stupid, but humans are wired to look for faces even in things like potato chips and the sides of barns, so it isn't my fault. Squids are bilaterally symmetrical and have large visible eyes, which makes me want them to have a face when I look at them, but of course they don't. A squid's mouth is located on its "underside":
Fig. 1: oh holy jesus fucking christ get away
Well, they call it the underside, but is it really? A squid locomotes by expelling water through a siphon, and the siphon can be adjusted so the squid can travel in any direction through the sea. They don't really have an up or a down to them. So if I was going to mentally project an imaginary (and no doubt creepy as all hell) smile onto a squid to satisfy my need to see a face in it, I wouldn't know where to put it.
Popular depictions of the squid solve this problem in various ways.
Fig. 2: clarinet player
Fig. 3: strong, silent
Typically the body of the squid will be above the arms/tentacles with the mouth placed between the eyes and arms, if it is referenced at all. We are used to our own limbs being beneath our faces, after all, but given that a squid doesn't really have a top or bottom, couldn't it be just as valid to visualize a face on the other end of its fleshy body, away from the arms? (Assuming that "valid" is an acceptable concept when we are talking about putting imaginary faces on molluscs.)
Poll
P.S. Yes, I have the same problem with octopuses.
So what bugs me about squids (besides, like, everything) is that I never know where the face is. This sounds stupid, but humans are wired to look for faces even in things like potato chips and the sides of barns, so it isn't my fault. Squids are bilaterally symmetrical and have large visible eyes, which makes me want them to have a face when I look at them, but of course they don't. A squid's mouth is located on its "underside":
Fig. 1: oh holy jesus fucking christ get away
Well, they call it the underside, but is it really? A squid locomotes by expelling water through a siphon, and the siphon can be adjusted so the squid can travel in any direction through the sea. They don't really have an up or a down to them. So if I was going to mentally project an imaginary (and no doubt creepy as all hell) smile onto a squid to satisfy my need to see a face in it, I wouldn't know where to put it.
Popular depictions of the squid solve this problem in various ways.
Fig. 2: clarinet player
Fig. 3: strong, silent
Typically the body of the squid will be above the arms/tentacles with the mouth placed between the eyes and arms, if it is referenced at all. We are used to our own limbs being beneath our faces, after all, but given that a squid doesn't really have a top or bottom, couldn't it be just as valid to visualize a face on the other end of its fleshy body, away from the arms? (Assuming that "valid" is an acceptable concept when we are talking about putting imaginary faces on molluscs.)
Poll
P.S. Yes, I have the same problem with octopuses.