What do you think of when your hear the word “squid?” Sea monsters with enough size and strength to drag down a ship? Hellish man-eating creatures of the deep? Think again. When I think of the order Teuthida, I think of medical discoveries, saving lives, fascinating intelligence, and scientific revelations. I think of complex anatomy and diverse shapes and sizes. I think of adaptability and resourcefulness. I think you should read this research paper on squids.
Squids have quite an interesting appearance. The squid is bullet-shaped, partly due to the mantle, the sack that contains all of the vital organs of the squid. Every squid has 3 hearts - 2 at the gills, and 1 main heart that pumps copper-based blood. Teuthida is lacking of …show more content…
Squids are fortunate enough to be very adaptable. Squids evolved from immobile mollusks. These mollusks had a “foot” which kept them where they needed to be. They evolved arms and tentacles stored in pouches with highly developed sense organs, including taste. Deep-sea squids have been described with “extremely developed beach ball eyes,” says Wendy Williams. To get around, squids suck water into their funnels, and squirt it out. The more water they suck in, and the harder they push, the faster they go. It gets better still! They never go out of breath because they have gills inside their funnels! Their suckers are lined with teeth to grasp their prey. In the case of the vampire squid, when it is relentlessly being stalked by a predator, it bites off one of its arms, and the tentacle lights up and floats away, luring the predator away. Or, when it needs to sneak past an enemy, it curls up into a “deep sea tumbleweed” and tumbles past unnoticed. Other squids have bioluminescent ink that confuses the enemy, while some have ink that becomes a pseudomorph (shape of ejector) and fools the predator into attacking the false target. Did you know that some species of small squid can “fly” short distances out of the water? Humboldt squids have been found to hunt in packs “cooperatively, using active …show more content…
Well, everywhere in the ocean from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean, to the Antarctic Ocean. Typically, coral reefs are abundant with squid. Larger squid are usually found in deeper, colder waters. According to Wendy Williams, “many squid species can navigate safely through a variety of depths, adjusting their physiological responses accordingly." The only places where squids can’t be found are the Black and Baltic Seas.
Eating! Every organism needs to do it, including squids! The squids’ diet is quite simple - shrimp, fish, shellfish, plankton, small whales, mollusks [including other squid whom may be schoolmates - (cannibalism,)] and possibly humans as they sometimes show aggressive behavior towards people. To obtain their food, the squid ambush their prey by rippling their fins to get closer to the food source, then shoot out their feeding tentacles. Some squid migrate depths for hunting thus finding different prey and adding some diversity to their
Squids have quite an interesting appearance. The squid is bullet-shaped, partly due to the mantle, the sack that contains all of the vital organs of the squid. Every squid has 3 hearts - 2 at the gills, and 1 main heart that pumps copper-based blood. Teuthida is lacking of …show more content…
Squids are fortunate enough to be very adaptable. Squids evolved from immobile mollusks. These mollusks had a “foot” which kept them where they needed to be. They evolved arms and tentacles stored in pouches with highly developed sense organs, including taste. Deep-sea squids have been described with “extremely developed beach ball eyes,” says Wendy Williams. To get around, squids suck water into their funnels, and squirt it out. The more water they suck in, and the harder they push, the faster they go. It gets better still! They never go out of breath because they have gills inside their funnels! Their suckers are lined with teeth to grasp their prey. In the case of the vampire squid, when it is relentlessly being stalked by a predator, it bites off one of its arms, and the tentacle lights up and floats away, luring the predator away. Or, when it needs to sneak past an enemy, it curls up into a “deep sea tumbleweed” and tumbles past unnoticed. Other squids have bioluminescent ink that confuses the enemy, while some have ink that becomes a pseudomorph (shape of ejector) and fools the predator into attacking the false target. Did you know that some species of small squid can “fly” short distances out of the water? Humboldt squids have been found to hunt in packs “cooperatively, using active …show more content…
Well, everywhere in the ocean from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean, to the Antarctic Ocean. Typically, coral reefs are abundant with squid. Larger squid are usually found in deeper, colder waters. According to Wendy Williams, “many squid species can navigate safely through a variety of depths, adjusting their physiological responses accordingly." The only places where squids can’t be found are the Black and Baltic Seas.
Eating! Every organism needs to do it, including squids! The squids’ diet is quite simple - shrimp, fish, shellfish, plankton, small whales, mollusks [including other squid whom may be schoolmates - (cannibalism,)] and possibly humans as they sometimes show aggressive behavior towards people. To obtain their food, the squid ambush their prey by rippling their fins to get closer to the food source, then shoot out their feeding tentacles. Some squid migrate depths for hunting thus finding different prey and adding some diversity to their