Happy Halloween!

Wishing everyone a googly-eyed Halloween!

Video: MBARI

Whether you want any other body parts to go with those peepers is of course, completely up to you.

Thrice-damned Hallowe'en Horrors

It's Hallowe'en! That time of year when we trip the light phantasmic with death, trip and fall with darkness and "accidentally" trip and fall while holding a knife inappropriately in a crowded area with evil. Woo!

Behold Death. He's trying out a clown costume this year. He's really enjoying the red wig. I've never seen anyone put so much hair gel on a wig before! He needed every drop to comb it into the shape of his own scythe. He says he might laminate it!

Here be Darkness. She's taken up baking cupcakes and brought some along for us to try. They're delicious! They practically stand up and walk right into my mouth of their own accord. In fact, the legs are my favourite bit!

Yonder is Evil. He's dressed up in a long, white robe with a little cardboard halo fixed onto his head with a piece of wire. He does that every year but it's hilarious every time!

Let's take a look at some of the ghosts and ghouls who haunt our world all year round:

Ice Cream Cone Worm

Image: Hans Hillewaert

Worm flavoured ice cream!

Eastern Newt

Image: Ken-ichi Ueda
Notophthalmus viridescens

The Eastern Newt spends most its life not being orange. Which must be why it's so very orange while it has the chance.

Vampire Crab

Image: budak

The striking colours of evil at its starey-eyed cutest.

Wrap-around Spider

Image: Robert Whyte

The Wrap-around Spider probably doesn't want to wrap its hairy self around your face! It was an accident and they take full responsibility for any distress which may have been caused.

A Big, Yellow Larvacean!

Most Larvacea are tiny, almost entirely transparent and while they're found all over the world, the biggest, most obvious ones live in deep, Arctic waters.

This one is clad in the fluorescent colours of a highlighter pen!

Demon Stinger

Image Bernard DUPONT

This fish has stolen my heart! Probably eaten it, too.

Rainbow Eucalyptus

Image: Kristi
Eucalyptus deglupta

Who needs flowers when you have a trunk like this?

Pyura chilensis

The roads of Hell are paved in cobblestones which wail unceasing into the sulphuric night as demonic hooves and bestial paws crush them beneath their weight.

Should you visit the long, winding passages of that dread kingdom, be merciful, traveller. Never tarry, and let your steps be soft and swift for your boots pound the poor, suffering souls of the damned.

Wings of a Feather

Image: George Poinar Jr. & John T. Huber

Disney's Dumbo was a silly, little elephant who thought he could fly by means of a single feather. It's an understandable delusion, given his situation. He was raised by a mouse in a circus after his mother was deemed clinically insane. From an early age he was ostracised by his own kind, bullied, abused and forced to work a humiliating job which he hated.

No wonder the wretched cherub wanted to fly away.

Except that he could fly away. But not because of the feather. It was much more to do with his gigantic pair of ears and a peculiar cessation of reality and physics. Because all things are possible when you have truly gigantic ears.

But there are creatures out there who really can fly using nothing but a couple of feathers. They don't require a cessation of reality and they don't even need ears of any size whatsoever...

MIRACLE!

A Shaggy Sea Cucumber!

Image: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010

Finally! A fuzzy Sea Cucumber you can cuddle!

Climbing Gourami

Image: Brian Gratwicke

Not all fish out of water are created equal!