Offensive Squid

I'd always imagined squid grabbing their prey by unfolding their tentacles and waving them around like us mammals. But according to Steven Vogel's Comparitive Biomechanics, instead they have a helical muscle arrangement around the tentacle. Tightening the muscle reduces the diameter, so to keep the volume the same the tentacle extends in length. The figures quoted are 23% reduction in diameter gives 70% extension, at up to 250 metres/sec squared acceleration.

Wow. Less like mammal unfolding arm, more like liquid metal terminator stabbing somebody.

Anybody know more about this? What happens to the suckers on the tentacle when it gets stretched like this?

Post edited 5:52 pm – September 25, 2010 by hugo.fisher

Thanks for the video! Great for someone who's never really looked at squid before.

As well as 3:12 there's another clip at about 5:02 where I could see the two hunting tentacles extending out towards the camera. Gecko and frog tongues are one thing, but this is a critter over a metre in length. Really alien looking.

(While the beak and tentacles are scary, I also found the way they swim with the fins to be quite beautiful.)

And according to the biology professor consultant, the Humboldts have big brains but don't bother with philosophising or anything except eating and reproducing. An appropriate mascot beast indeed.

Hmmm … genetically enhanced omni-savant squid … do we even know how genetically modify squid?