Cephalopods

True Facts About the Cuttlefish 

True Facts About the Octopus

Habitat

Octopus-

•          Usually live in rocks, coral, or burrows.
•          Because they’re invertebrates, they are able to squeeze through narrow passages to find homes.
•          Homes provide protection and they allow the females to lay their eggs.

Squid-

•          Live in warm tropic waters while some live in colder waters.
•          They are found near the sea floor, which is about 10,000 feet below sea level.
•          They are generally found in four oceans.
•          They don’t migrate for new homes.

Mollusks-

•          Some are found on shallow coastal areas while others are In deep ocean.
•          Usually are found where volcanic sediments come in contact with cold waters.
•          They bury themselves in sand, silt, mud, and gravel.
•          They are substrates to help support their heavy shells.

Cuttlefish-

•          Usually found near the Mediterranean, Baltic, and North Sea coasts.
•          They live in temperate waters where the cuttlefish are most comfortable.
•          Use their camouflage to blend in with their habitat to hide from predators and hunt prey.

Feeding

Octopus:

• Crabs
• Whelks
• Small fish
• Mollusks
• Clams
• Lobsters
• Sea Worms
• Shrimp
• Pacific Giant Octopus sometimes go after sharks

Squid:

• Hoki (Grenadier fish)
• Shrimp
• Young sharks and whales (giant and colossal squid)

Cuttlefish:

• Clown fish
• Trigger fish
• Gobies
• Blennies
• Wrasse
• Cardinal fish
• Seahorses
• Damsels
• Tangs
• Crabs
• Shrimp

Nautilus:

• Small fish
• Crabs
• Crustaceans
• Carrion

Types

Octopi:

• Found in every ocean, and there are over 100 species.
• They lack feeding tentacles; most lack fins.
• They seize their prey, inject it with paralyzing toxins, then eat it.
• A female octopus attaches her eggs to rocks and guards them until they hatch; then she dies.

Squid:

• Squids have eight arms, usually two feeding tentacles (longer than arms), and a fin on each side of their mantle.
• They are found in every ocean and are either swimming, floating, or resting on the bottom of the ocean floor.
• Squids that live in shallow waters are active hunters.
• They propel themselves using their siphons and swim/turn using their fins.

Nautiluses

• The only cephalopod with an outer shell (today).
• They are nocturnal.
• Can live for about 20 years.

Cuttlefishes:

• More than 100 species.
• Eight arms and two long, lightning fast feeding tentacles.
• Named after the chalky internal shell they possess and use for floating.

Migration

•Octopus- they migrate from shallow deep waters and back again.

•Squid- they migrate from the north to the south for food and climate change.

•Cuttlefish- the cuttlefish migrate between May and August between False Bay and Fitzegard Bay for food.

•Nautilus-Ultrasonic telemetry techniques were employed to track eleven specimens of Nautilus pompilius for variable times ranging from one to 78 days at Osprey Reef, Coral Sea, Australia.

Anatomy

Organs:

•          High brain-to-body mass ratio; most intelligent of the invertebrates.
•          Three hearts.
•          Gills and Siphon for breathing and jet-propulsion respectively.
•          Gonads typically at the top of the mantle (head).
•          Most have ink sacs.
•          Have bird-like beaks, and most have radulas (multiple rows of up to nine teeth).
•          Large, highly developed eyes, yet they are colorblind. 

Appendages:

• Most have at least eight arms and two or more tentacles
•  Arms are lined with suction cups and tentacles usually have the suckers only at the tips
• “Cephalopod” means “head-foot.”

Size and Color:

•          As big as 60 feet (Giant Squid) to as little as half an inch (Pygmy Squid).
•          Most have chromatophores which stretch and squash to change color.

Nautiluses:

•          Still retain exterior shells.
•          Have about 90 arms that lack suckers but are rather sticky.

A little about the Sperm Whale

       The sperm whale's scientific name is Physeter Macrocephalus. They pretty much live all over the oceans, because they are apex predators. They have a gestation period of 14-16 months which produces a single calf. Sperm whales are deep divers, and when they're hungry they dive deep for medium size squid, giant squid, and colossal squid. They don't really have migratory patterns; however, adult males tend to move away from the females and young males who live in the tropical waters and swim to the arctic and the antarctic. These adult males are thought to do this due to scramble competition for mesopelagic (200m - 1000m ocean depth zone) squid. Sperm whales don't (under usual circumstances) form bonds with other species. They also have social lives, though, three quarters of their time is spent foraging (getting food) and the other quarter is spent socializing, which is usually done in the afternoon.

 Physical Characteristics: 
       Sperm whales are large and gray/white, and have block-shaped heads that are one quarter to one third of their body length. For this they are also known as "Cachalot." On average, males grow to about 52 feet and weigh 41,000 kilograms, while females grow to about 36 feet and weigh 14,000 kilograms (in other words, dudes are big and strong and the chicks are small which is actually ironic). They have comparatively large flukes (tails) of triangular shape and high flexibility, which are also capable of inflicting fatal blows to orcas. They have narrow, under-slung lower jaws, lined with 18 to 26 cone-shaped teeth that can weigh up to a kilogram, yet they are not necessary for capturing and eating squid; instead, it is believed that they are used in aggression between males (like my fists). The teeth can be analyzed similar to tree rings to determine the whales age. Its eyes are the largest of toothed whales, weighing about 170 grams. Its cornea is elliptical and its lens in spherical; the eyes are retractable, as shown in the following short clip.

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Squid and Crayfish Dissection

First, we pinned the squid's body parts, as shown below.

The squid is a fine and delicate creature. Ironically, it has a part of it that is called the "pen." We used this "pen" and the squid's ink to write our name on a piece of paper.

Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of the squid's length, width, or weight. However, I do distinctively remember that our squid was a female, due to the clear gonads (aside from the fact that we opened it up and discovered eggs).

We were supposed to dissect shrimp. However, a crayfish has a lot of similarities to a shrimp, aside from the pincers the crayfish is equipped with.

Our crayfish weighed 16.9 grams, much less than the squid. It had a length of 10.5 cm and a width of 4 cm. Our crayfish, according to our instructor, was too a female.

Different Levels of Different Stuff in Our Fish Tank

Photoinception: Taking a photo of a Issac trying to take a photo of 

Stripes; he is unsuccessful with getting a clear picture while I killed 

two birds with one stone.

We used this chart; however, we encountered a problem with pH.

We had to put 2.5 mL of fish water in each of the five test tubes.

We started with Ammonia. It was yellow at first.

Left-to-right: Ammonia, pH, High pH, Nitrite, Nitrate.

Levels:

• Ammonia: 4.0 ppm
• pH: N/A
• High pH: 8.2 ppm
• Nitrite: 2.0 ppm
• Nitrate: 0 ppm

Our Ammonia and Nitrite levels were high, so we had to clean 

some of the tank for Stripes, and add a few drops of a few liquids.

Infiltration Lab

Sand doesn't do a very good job.

Sand and Soil did noticeably better...

Looks like pee, but the liquid is much more clear.

Sand plus Gravel and Soil didn't do as well as we expected.

Looks somewhat murky, right?

Sand plus Gravel plus Soil and Grass wasn't experimented on until two days later, and yet...

You could see it was much more filtered if you looked at it at the right angle.

[This lab was to see how well sand, gravel, soil, and grass filter water solutions.]

Properties of Water and Their Definitions

• Adhesion and Cohesion: "stickiness" to other substances and molecules of water, due to the bipolar nature of the H-two-O molecule. 
• Buoyancy: the upward force that opposes the weight (pull of gravity) of an immersed object. Fresh water has less buoyancy than distilled water and salt water has the most buoyancy of these three.
• Surface Tension and Capillary Action: Surface tension results due to the cohesive nature of water: water molecules want to cling together, and form a tension strong enough to hold anything that can't penetrate the surface. Water's cohesive properties also account for its capillary actions: its movement within the spaces of porous material.
• Density: The density of water is the weight of the water per its unit volume, which depends on the temperature of the water. Water has an average density of one gram per milliliter.
• Dissolved Oxygen and Temperature: As the name suggests, oxygen dissolved in water. Rapidly moving water tends to have more dissolved oxygen than stagnant water. Temperature does play a role here as well: cold bodies of water have higher concentrations of dissolved oxygen and warm bodies of water have lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen.
• Hardness: The measure of the amount of calcium and magnesium salts in water.
• pH: the measure of acidity of basicity of an aqueous solution. Water has a pH of 7, which translates to neutral.
• Mixture/Solution/Suspension: A mixture is noticeable, such as a salad; a mixture of water and alcohol would have alcohol on top and water on the bottom (due to buoyancy) and would also have a range of boiling points. A solution (such as ocean water) contains dissolves substances. An example of suspension would be water and sand due to sand being a sediment.
• Specific Heat: Also referred to as "heat capacity." Water has a high specific heat: it has to absorb 4.184 Joules of heat to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
• Solvent/Solute: Water is a solvent; in fact, it's the "universal solvent." Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid, due of course to its polarity.
• Conductivity: A measure of the ability of water to pass an electrical current. Conductivity in water is affected by inorganic dissolved solids. Warmer temperatures increase conductivity. 
• Turbidity: The measure of relative clarity of a liquid. It is an expression of the amount of light that is scattered by material in the water when a light is shined through the water sample.
• Water Cycle: The continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the earth, a.k.a. the hydrosphere.
• Porosity: How much empty space there is in a material (e.g. a rock). Water likes to collect and run in and through the pores of materials and can erode, especially, rocks and earth in this manner.

Properties of Water: pH video

pH or "Acids and Bases." Pretty much the same thing.



pH is the measure of acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Anything with a pH of less than 7 is considered an acid, and anything with a pH higher than 7 is considered a base. If the solution has a pH of 7, it is said to be neutral (e.g. water).