Cephalopod eight or ten. Decapods such as cuttlefish and squid have five pairs. The longer two, termed "tentacles", are actively involved in capturing prey; they can lengthen rapidly (in as little as 15 milliseconds). In giant squid they may reach a length of 8 metres. They may terminate in a broadened, sucker-coated club. The shorter four pairs are termed "arms", and are involved in holding and manipulating the captured organism. They too have suckers, on the side closest to the mouth; these help to hold onto the prey. Octopods only have four pairs of sucker-coated arms, as the name suggests, though
Magnoteuthis microlucens by NELHA operations manager Jan War, a reference to the fact that the specimen had only eight arms, like an octopus, rather than the eight arms and two tentacles of most squid. An examination of the specimen conducted by Richard Young of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, however, concluded that it is was an unnamed species of the genus "Mastigoteuthis". The specimen was likely missing its tentacles due to them being torn off during capture. It was formally described in 2008 as "Mastigoteuthis microlucens". Magnoteuthis microlucens Magnoteuthis microlucens is a species of squid; the most common species of "Mastigoteuthis"