Boneless Ocean Animals With Tentacles

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Tentacles -- boneless appendages that serve some prehensile or tactile purpose -- appear in scattering of animal lineages in the sea and on land. Vertebrates and invertebrates have tentacles. Among these differing kinds of animals, tentacles perform a variety of roles, including hunting and sensing.

Cephalopods

When nearly people hear the word "tentacle," the beginning animal they think of is probably a cephalopod. Cephalopods are a grouping of mollusks -- the same family every bit shellfish and snails -- that includes octopus, squid and cuttlefish. The family also includes the extinct belemite and ammonites. All members of this family accept arms, simply merely squid and cuttlefish accept tentacles. The tentacles are distinguishable from artillery considering they are longer, retractable and have a flattened/spade-shaped tip. Cephalopods with arms utilise them for hunting casualty.

Gastropods

Another group of mollusks with tentacles is the gastropods -- snails and slugs. Most snails and slugs accept four tentacles on their heads. Two of these tentacles are eyestalks, appendages that end in an eye. The other pair serves to detect chemicals. It'south a kind of enhanced sense of smell. Using this sense of smell and affect, the lower tentacles promote navigation.

Cndarians

Cnadrians are some other group of ocean animals that have tentacles. This phylum includes jellyfish, sea anemones and coral. Two basic torso types exist in this phylum, medusae and polyps. A medusa floats in the water cavalcade, with tentacles hanging downwardly from its torso in a ring around its mouth. Jellyfish have this body blazon. The polyp is like an upside-down medusa, with its body anchored down and its tentacles and rima oris pointed upward. Anemones and coral follow this body plan. All cndarians take stinging cells called nematocytes that they use to envenomate prey or protect themselves.

Caecilians

Caecilians look similar snakes or eels but are actually amphibians. They are plant worldwide but tend to live underground and are rarely seen. Some species have two tentacles on their heads. These tentacles are sensory structures. The caecilians use these to navigate underground and under h2o. They also apply them to hunt for their prey, which includes worms and insects.

Star-Nosed Mole

The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is a small mammal that has tentacles on its face. This mole lives in Northward America. Information technology has 22 tentacles on its nose, each 1 millimeter to four millimeters long. Each tentacle has 25,000 touch receptors chosen Eimer's organs. These give the star-nosed mole the best sense of affect of whatever mammal. Information technology can sense microscopic variations in texture. It uses these tentacles to navigate cloak-and-dagger and hunt for nutrient, much like the caecilians.

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