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Is it a Pokemon? Googly-eyed purple squid snubs submarine crew

The crew of research vessel Nautilus thinks this little guy is adorable, but the cutie-pie cuttlefish relative is having none of it.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read
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The crew of the research vessel Nautilus spotted this colorful cuttlefish relative on Friday off the California coast.


Video screenshot by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper/CNET

I can hear you, you know. I'm just sitting here on the bottom of the ocean floor, somewhere off the coast of Southern California, and suddenly you humans come by, in your research vessel Nautilus, and start riffing on my looks. "Stop the ship!" "He has weird eyes!"

Just because I kind of resemble that old McDonald's mascot, Grimace, complete with bright purple coloring and googly eyes, is that a reason to laugh at me? "It's like some kid dropped his toy," you say. Well, if I were one of those Pokemon you people all seem to adore, you'd be falling all over yourself to feed me raspberries (sorry -- "Razz Berries") and throw things at me (on second thought, dodged a bullet there).

"Maybe he's got eye problems," one of you suggests in the video below. "They look like they're painted on," howls another as you so-called serious scientists dissolve into laughter. "It looks so fake!"

Well, maybe you've got eye problems, what with the eyeglasses and the lash extensions and the colored contact lenses, ever think of that? And "fake"? Which species has the breast implants and the Botox again?

And you wonder why I won't move for you just because you want to see me swim! I've heard about your trained monkeys, humans, and I don't play that. Move on, nothing to see here, go check out that whale skeleton again, or the weirdo purple orb you spotted last month.

Also, I may look like a mix between an octopus and a squid but I'm really more closely related to cuttlefish. So get my name right: It's Rossia pacifica. Not "Stubby squid," as many people call me. That sounds like a D-level Aquaman villain. Don't even get me started on that dude.