In today’s oceans, killer whales hunt other species of whales, working in packs to take down their much bigger prey. But living whales have it easy. Those that swam off the coast of Peru around 12 million years ago were hunted by a far bigger predator, a recently discovered animal with a very appropriate name: [...]
One of my current guilty pleasures is the History Channel reality show Pawn Stars. I was pretty sure I hated it, and then suddenly I found myself kind of addicted. The show focuses on the employees and clientele of the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, a family-owned business in Las Vegas, NV. It is a [...]
To close out Plush Week, here is, hands down, the coolest plush cephalopod in my collection…maybe the coolest plush cephalopod EVER MADE. Measuring over two and half feet long, Wild Republic’s Gaint Squid dominates the toy box. This awseomely anatomically accurate Architeuthis (although the tag claims it to be simply a “Squid”) was produced in [...]
I venture to guess that most people are at least tacitly familiar with Beanie Babies, the hugely successful line of stuffed animal toys by Ty Inc. Beanie Babies were first introduced in 1993, and they still being made to this day. At one time, there was a rabid collectors market for the cute little toys, [...]
I bet you didn’t think I’d be able to figure out a way to tie Plush Week to Wednesday Comics, but with the Internet all things are possible!
Kristin Hogan is the co-creator, writer and artist of a comic book called Dead Squirrel Girl. Squids play heavily into the story, so she came up with an [...]
I have always had a fondness for plush versions of animals that are not, by any reasonable definition, cuddly. I remember a particular stuffed toy vulture that I wanted more than anything when I was about 8 or 9, and one of my favorite recent non-cephalopod toys is an awesome plush horseshoe crab. Sharks, bats, [...]
I can’t decide if this shirt shows an octopus that loves his teddy bear, or one that just ate a child. (Although, I suppose there’s no reason it can’t be both.) At any rate, I tend to favor the sweet interpretation over the sinister.
This is actually a shirt that I own, but don’t have a [...]
Wildlife Artists, Inc is a toy company dedicated to making realistic plush animals. This cuddly cuttlefish is about 8″ long and was produced in 1999. If I recall correctly, I picked this up from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences gift shop sometime in 2001.
The tag doesn’t indicate which species it is meant to be, [...]