In some of the earliest surviving natural history accounts, this curious behaviour is noted. However, before most of this was experimentally and observationally discovered, they were perhaps best known for their “almost unique” ability to squirt ink when harangued, creating a smokescreen before jetting off to safety. Their anatomy has widely inspired art and design and research on their nervous system has lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of how the neurology of all organisms functions. In terms of diversity, cephalopods include the egg case making argonauts, shelled nautiluses, venomous blue-ringed octopuses and enigmatic giants like the giant and colossal squid. They have adapted to live in the cold depths of the ocean, warm shallows and some species even “fly”. Many of them are fast growing but short lived. They are famed for their ability to change colour, shape and size. Neurologically, they are head (and shoulders if they had them) above all other invertebrate animals, sometimes called honourary vertebrates for their cognitive ability and potential conciousness. Not only are they strange when anatomically compared to their shelled relatives like bivalves, snails and chitons but their evolution, physiology and behaviour makes them almost as interesting as vertebrates (I’m kidding, they’re way more interesting).ĭespite there only being around 700 living species of cephalopods, biologically, they have evolved an array of adaptations that modern science is still only just unpicking.
Cephalopods, the group of molluscs that includes octopuses, cuttlefish, squids, ammonites, nautiluses and belemnites, are a weird bunch.
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