Squid
Lots of squid are small. But the giant squid and colossal squid can grow as long as a bus.
Caribbean reef squid
|
Bigfin reef squid
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
|
Squid are different colours. They can even change colour to help them hide from predators. They can also shoot out ink so the other animal cannot see. Then the squid can swim away.
A giant squid in a museum
Squid have 8 arms and 2 tentacles. The tentacles are longer than the arms. A squid shoots out its tentacles fast to catch fish. Its arms help to bring the fish to its mouth. The arms
have suckers that are good at sticking to things.
A giant squid's suckers have a ring of teeth. They help the squid grip onto its prey.
The giant squid's eyes are as big as footballs. They let the squid see prey or predators in the dark.
The giant squid's brain is the shape of a donut. It has a hole through the middle.
A squid explores a deep sea vessel.
Sperm whales try to eat giant squid, but giant squid try to fight them off. The teeth on the giant squid's suckers can hurt a sperm whale.
The vampire squid
Its long name is vampire squid from hell, but it doesn’t feed on blood and it isn’t even a squid. |
Picture by Carl Chun is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons
|
The vampire squid lives at the bottom of the sea. It eats very tiny parts of dead animals that drift down from above. These parts are so tiny they look like snow.
Parts of the vampire squid can glow.
The vampire squid can almost turn itself inside out. It does this to try to scare away predators.