Cthulhu was a professor of genetics. His students viewed him as old fashioned, partly because of his manner of dress and his glasses. While Cthulhu was willing to allow his students some latitude in their questioning of him, he had a strictly defined sense of what constituted a silly question. For example, when one of his students, Nyarlathotep, asked whether it was possible for modern life to have evolved from anything but mollusks, Cthulhu was initially very irritated.