Carl Zimmer has a nice piece on the voracity of star-nosed moles in the NYT today. But am I the only one to think they look like escapees from the Cthulhu mythos? If I found one poking its snout up through my lawn, I’d be distinctly unnerved …
Update: by popular demand, I’ve moved the disturbing cthonic entity beneath the fold. Here’s an old kitten photo instead (Aoife is now 2 years older and 7 pounds tubbier than she was then).
(picture found via BoingBoing).
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Don’t you think Darwin would have been fascinated by these mammals?
Actually, I’m more fascinated by the assumption that everyone, or at least everyone reading CT, has read Lovecraft.
Don’t you wish the Times did as good a job on everything as they do on star-nosed moles? It’s only a matter of time until genetic engineers start inserting these incredibly sensitive stars into human erogenous zones. Just think of the possibilities. Sure, it wouldn’t be pretty, but really—are genitalia pretty?
Lovecraft? i’m thinking Bosch. half badger, half octopus, all evil.
Phn’glui!
Like many allusions that are on the fringes of pop culture, you don’t have to have read Lovecraft to recognize “Cthulhu” (quotes added because actually recognizing Cthulhu would be all too disturbing). I’m fairly sure I first encountered the name in comic books, though I can’t remember what comics.
I remeber reading the EC comic books of the early 60’s-although since they were in the attic, they may hve been older-that cited ‘Cthulhu’ and other Lovecraftian denizens of the dark side. I also (unsuccessfully) tried to convince my junior high English teachers that Lovecraft was fit for book reports.
The NYT did a much better job than the Eurekalert – a case study in good journalism. But then, it came from Carl Zimmer, who probably relished the opportunity to be a bit light hearted. He runs the estimable Loom.
From the Daily Telegraph, Feb 5 2005 “Dog eat mole Sir – You report (News, Feb 3) a star-nosed mole that can identify food and eat it in 230 one-thousandths of a second. What kept it? We have a labrador, Ben, who, in a similar time, can identify anything edible, awaken from a deep sleep, shoot across the kitchen, devour the food and return to his basket, all without appearing to be in a particular hurry. He would probably eat a star-nosed mole, provided it looked like a biscuit. Chris Middleton, Rotherham, S Yorks”
“I also (unsuccessfully) tried to convince my junior high English teachers that Lovecraft was fit for book reports.” You should have gone with his non-horror works, such as The Silver Key, or Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath. They’re much more to the taste of literary types.
You know what they say about moles with big hands…
Yes Brett, Lovecraft had his sensitive side – but you wouldn’t have caught Lord Dunsany writing about a occult French Tickler like that.
Hm. I actually assigned my students to read Lovecraft last year. (Class title: “The American Fantastic”) Smartest paper in the class was on Lovecraft—I’m convinced the student took the class solely for the opportunity to write that paper.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read just about everything Lovecraft ever wrote, aside from one or two short stories, and I can’t recall any “French Ticklers”.
I’ve never read Lovecraft and got the allusion.
Funny, that picture reminded me more of “goatse” than anything else.
Well, the whole “Order of the Shrill” will get the Cthulhu references.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, someone else at CT post something! That image is going to give me nightmares.
Me too! Where’s that thing’s head? It’s creepin me out.
Yeah, I’ve not read Lovecraft, either. But I wager that a lot of CT readers are like me and are unusually, um, aware of many, many things they’ve not read or seen or otherwise experienced directly. I don’t know why I am, exactly, but relative to most people I know this seems to be the case. Sometimes I wish this weren’t the case, as I deliberately don’t trust this sort of secondhand “knowledge” though, in practice, of course I do.
Jack: What did you have your students read?
I think it’s fair to say that when the star-nosed mole claimed certainty regarding the presence of WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq, he was working with faulty intelligence, and therefore, while technically “not true,” his claims could in no way . . . uh . . . hold on a sec. [Pauses. Reads post a second time.] Oh. Voracity. Never mind.
I think it’s fair to say that when the star-nosed mole claimed certainty regarding the presence of WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq, he was working with faulty intelligence, and therefore, while technically “not true,” his claims could in no way . . . uh . . . hold on a sec. [Pauses. Reads post a second time.] Oh. Voracity. Never mind.
Walt: “Pickman’s Model.” Not really the most representative of Lovecraft’s stuff, but pedegogically handy, I must say.
I don’t know that a photo of a cold-eyed feline killer is actually an improvement over one of the reigning fast-food champion. Frigate birds are pretty disturbing, too, if you’re averse to bright red external organs.
These moles have freaky noses? What kind of racist stereotyping is that? Shame!
wait, your cat is named the same thing as Kieran’s daughter? also, thanks for nixing the mole. that shit was creeping me out.
Hell, you can’t call yourself a blogger if you can’t handle the mole. And that cat has a crazy look in its eye.
Cthulhu features prominently in The Invisibles, among other comics. Also in The Illuminatus Trilogy, less prominently.
Did i mention my mom hates moles with a passion? And that the high res version of the photo does pass trough the big pipes of the gmail? And that the internets are great?
But what of the proboscis monkey, I hear you ask.
I was amazed, yesterday, to discover a friend was disturbed by the mole. In an effort to make him feel more comfortable about the wee thing I told him that moles loved him and that all the star nosed mole in the picture wanted to do was to curl up next to his ear at night while he slept. Curiously, this failed to put him at ease.
That’s not a crazy look from the cat; it’s a predatory look. He’s seen the mole and has plans for dinner.
Yes, the little beast is evidently plotting something.
You people are weak. When the collapse comes, Dick Cheney is eating you first.
In Josef Skvorecky’s “The Engineer of Human Souls” (a book I highly recommend to anyone who likes fiction), one of the characters becomes confused because she has visited a Toronto sex shop named Lovecraft but her lover is speaking of the writer. Her bewilderment is amusing.
Cool, frigate birds—I hear they eat star-nose moles.
“Yeah, but there’s no connection – it’s a not uncommon Irish name, and we chose it a couple of months before Kieran’s Aoife was born.” Yeah, and? You leap to the conclusion that there’s no connection? That’s a confusion of correlation with noncausation. What makes you so sure that Kieran didn’t name his daughter after your cat?
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