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
Giant squid which he called "teuthus", distinguishing it from the smaller squid, the "teuthis". He mentions, "of the calamaries, the so-called "teuthus" is much bigger than the "teuthis"; for "teuthi" [plural of "teuthus"] have been found as much as five ells long". Pliny the Elder, living in the first century AD, also described a gigantic squid in his "Natural History", with the head "as big as a cask", arms long, and carcass weighing . Tales of giant squid have been common among mariners since ancient times, and may have led to the Norse legend of the "kraken", a tentacled sea monster as