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
Whip-lash squid and "Idioteuthis" are known to have expanded tentacular clubs as paralarvae (for both species) or adults ("Idioteuthis"). Members of this family have scarcely been observed in life, but at least two species ("Mastigopsis hjorti" and "Magnoteuthis magna") are known to hover above the ocean bottom in a vertical orientation, the head pointing downward. The squid use their large fins to maintain this orientation and use both their extended tentacles like fly paper, held rigidly at a constant distance apart: this has been termed the "tuning fork" position. Prey items apparently consist primarily of benthic crustaceans. Although mastigoteuthids possess ink sacs