tangledbeast

[tangledbeast]

Amazing things on Liv's desktop:

"cute animals" folder

"tree pics" folder

"Cats pic and movies" folder

"ock notes" folder

"secret plans" folder

"cheese club" folder

"fav outfits" folder

"Pool party" folder

"fantasy league" folder

"new beakers" folder

"blue folder" folder

"crazy 789237894790" folder

good.doc

new hair.jpeg

2016 cow pics.jpeg

best sandwiches.jpeg

SPA ART.jpeg

files for evil

no no no

best gifs

doomsday

thai food

something with "jazz"

#itsv #olivia octavius

[tangledbeast]

🎉🎉🎉

[tangledbeast]

Truly a shame there's not more yak appreciation on tumblr.

[tangledbeast]

#55 is a relevant number to me so unfortunately schfifty five

[tangledbeast]

The grocery store was playing that Around the World La La La La La song and it sounded so wrong at normal speed

[tangledbeast]

stop grabbing that poor kid's head with your giant ass hands!!!

#atsv spot #miles has had enough of that shit lol

[tangledbeast]

Wait! I know that bird! I've seen that cast in person at UW! That one is actually a different "demon duck" in the same clade, Dromornis stirtoni.

Oddly enough, Wikipedia and the Australian Museum suggest that only one species in particular is known as the "demon duck of doom", and it's neither of those. It's Dromornis planei. Like, every member of Dromornithidae is definitely a demon duck, but Dromornis planiei is specifically one of doom?

Something silly is happening here a la the can opener smoothdream.

im. im sorry. the Who

[tangledbeast]

I think I stumbled upon some kind of ichthyological forbidden knowledge. Opened up a book of names that were never meant to be read.

You've probably heard of "can-opener smoothdream", right? It's practically a meme by now.

But the thing is, it's a deep-sea fish. And deep-sea fish have historically not had English names because nobody drops them into the conversation over a hot cuppa. Sure, there's generic stuff like hatchetfish and barreleye, but when you want to refer to the actual fish you're probably saying such euphonious phrases as Diretmus argenteus, Sternoptyx diaphana, or maybe even Opisthoproctus soleatus.

So whence "can-opener smoothdream"? Certainly no non-ichthyologist has ever used that name. It's not even a direct translation of the scientific name Chaenophryne longiceps - that would be "long-headed gape-toad". Which to me is even cooler than "can-opener smoothdream".

But I digress. The "dream" bit comes from the anglerfish family Oneirodidae, from oneiros, "dream", because those marvelous fishes look like they came out of a dream (Pietsch, 2009).

Note that Pietsch (2009), more or less the anglerfish bible, uses English names at the genus level only. So Chaenophryne is the smoothhead dreamers genus but no mention is made of "can-opener smoothdreams". So no luck there.

Wikipedia, root cause of a lot of misinformation, has this to say.

"Longhead dreamer" is a far more accurate name. And in fact, despite Wikipedia prioritizing "can-opener smoothdream" (because it's funny?), the links listed use "longhead dreamer" and "smoothhead dreamer" as the name and "can-opener smoothdream" as an alternative.

So. Again. Where did "can-opener smoothdream" come from?

The answer, as it turns out, lies with McAllister (1990).

In the book A List of the Fishes of Canada, ichthyologist D. E. McAllister sought out to list every single fish known to Canadian waters, providing both an English and a French name.

And when there wasn't an English name, like for most deep-sea fishes, he arbitrarily gave them a name. And his names "differ in many instances from the widely accepted names" (Holm, 1998)

This had varying results. This is his name for one of the netdevil anglerfishes.

The humpback anglerfish or blackdevil anglerfish becomes a werewolf (????).

This one is just confusing.

The white-spotted lanternfish or Rafinesque's lanternfish instead becomes...

And most embarrassingly, the Mediterranean spiderfish gets saddled with something that "violates the tenet of good taste" (Holm, 1998).

This then is the original source of "can-opener smoothdream". It was invented by an ichthyologist in 1990, and has seen little to no use outside of how bizarre the name is.

Maybe McAllister's goofier names will catch on. Who knows? They certainly aren't very popular in the scientific community though.

References

Holm, E. (1998) Encyclopedia of Canadian Fishes (review). The Canadian Field-Naturalist, 112, p. 174-175.

McAllister, D. E. (1990) A List of the Fishes of Canada. National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa.

Pietsch, T. W. (2009) Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea. University of California Press, Berkeley.

[tangledbeast]

This is my favorite guy in DQM so far. Not one thought in his head.

#dragon quest monsters

[tangledbeast]

Well, it finally happened. After 10+ years of seeing me, my doctor has simply stopped asking about potential pregnancy

[tangledbeast]

caddisfly crawled out of the water an unknowingly used his case as a paintbrush

#bug art #my pics #so young and already so talented

[tangledbeast]

“It’s you!”

“Despite everything, it’s still you!”

#silent hill

[tangledbeast]

ITS OVER!!! FREE PALESTINE!!! THANK YOU RTVS COMMUNITY!!! 🖤 🤍 💚

#Wow! Yay!!!

[tangledbeast]

Found out from bogleech that DQM 2 got a translation patch so I'm playing it right now. Spent an hour customizing the special monster you get. This is my monster, Big Doggy.

#dragon quest monsters #I've never played any of these games before but I would die for big doggy

[tangledbeast]

Gloom OBF 198 Illustration Rare by Masako Tomii from Scarlet & Violet—Obsidian Flames

#pokemon

[tangledbeast]

when angels deserve to (cd-i ganon voice) DIE

[tangledbeast]

If, god forbid, there's ever another film adaptation of the Southern Reach Trilogy, can we at least cast Bob Odenkirk as the lighthouse keeper

#southern reach trilogy #because better call...better call-*violently explodes*