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Heel n Toe Heel n Toe is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 13,450
That woman obviously doesn't know much about octopusses. Or is it octopi?



...although the octopus does not have any teeth in the standard sense, it has several other just as effective methods of cracking into crustaceans and mollusks. The octopus has a veritable Swiss Army knife of tools located inside its mouth to pry open the shells it can't open with its tentacles. Directly inside its mouth, it has a hard retractable beak similar to a parrot's. This beak is useful for breaking open clam shells and tearing apart flesh. Next to the beak is the radula, a barbed tongue the octopus uses to scrape an animal out of its shell once the shell is opened. And if these tools don't do the trick, it also has a tooth-covered organ called the salivary papilla that it can use to drill into shells. The papilla's bodily secretion also erodes the shell and then weakens the prey so it can be consumed.

One of the octopus's preferred methods for capturing prey while swimming is to envelop it in the web of skin between its tentacles, as though capturing it with a net. Then it devours the prey with its beak.

HowStuffWorks "Octopus Behavior"
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Old 10-13-2009, 11:06 AM
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