Humboldt squid squid uses its barbed tentacle suckers to grab its prey and slices and tears the victim's flesh with its beak and radula. They often approach prey quickly with all 10 appendages extended forward in a cone-like shape. Upon reaching striking distance, they open their eight swimming and grasping arms, and extend two long tentacles covered in sharp 'teeth', grabbing their prey and pulling it back towards a parrot-like beak, which can easily cause serious lacerations to human flesh. These two longer tentacles can reach full length, grab prey, and retract so fast that almost the entire event happens in one
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