![]() Octopus’ soft body can squeeze into the tiniest of the spaces to catch their prey or to escape a predator. The flexible and long arms of this creature are well-equipped to reach well-hidden places in the crevices where the small fish or crabs are hidden. Consumption of all the prey is primarily dependent on the beak of the octopus. The diet depends on the availability of the prey in its immediate environment.Īs mentioned in the paragraph above, the octopus uses various means to consume and capture its prey. They can diet on lobsters, snails, shrimp, clams, sharks, and various other scallops and crustaceans. To cut it short, an octopus is meat-eating creatures, which means they are carnivores. Octopus eats a variety of foods, and the list of their diet is quite long. Some Octopus hunt during the night and some other species hunt the whole day, from dusk to dawn. Once the prey is in its full control, then the octopus devours the prey first with its beak, then the radula, and if both these don’t work, then salivary papilla comes into play. The octopus, while swimming, captures the prey and envelops it in the web of its tentacles/arm skin, it’s like the octopus’ natural net. The papilla secretes some eroding bodily secretions that erode the shell, and thus the prey becomes weak and is consumed by the predator (octopus). Once the shell opens up, this tongue is used to scrape the animal out of the shell.Īlong with both these deadly tools, there is another tooth-covered organ, which is known as the salivary papilla, this is a natural drill machine in the octopus’ body. The beak not only breaks open clamshells but also can tear the flesh apart.Īlso, there is a radula right next to the beak, which is a barbed tongue. ![]() The shells of the animals that can’t be opened with its tentacles are opened within seconds with its beak. The beak is as sharp as a Swiss Army knife. It is strange but true that octopuses do not have teeth nonetheless, they still can crack up many of their prey that has a hard exoskeleton.Ī well-equipped beak compensates the missing teeth in the octopus, which is just as effective, or maybe more, to break open into the mollusks and the crustaceans. The reason for this gradient is the different chemical composition of the beak at different parts. It has been observed that the remains of the cephalopod beak are found in the stomachs of large predators of octopus, like the sperm whales.Īs you move from the tip to the base of the beak, its stiffness gradually reduces. The octopus beak is primarily made of chitin, but it also comprises of cross-linked proteins that make it even hard to digest by the octopus predators.
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