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
Doryteuthis plei Doryteuthis plei Doryteuthis plei, also known as the slender inshore squid or arrow squid, is a medium-sized squid belonging to the family Loliginidae. It occurs abundantly in coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, from Argentina northward to North Carolina. As both common names imply, these squid have elongate, cylindrical bodies with a length to width ratio of 7:1. The arms are in contrast short and weak; the two tentacles are somewhat less than the mantle length. The rhombus-shaped fins are large, up to about 50 percent of the mantle length. Running the ventral length of the mantle is a noticeable