Marine Invertebrates

Hey everybody! I have some very informative questions and answers about marine invertebrates for you. Lets see if you can answer them. But before that you must know what MARINE INVERTEBRATES are. Marine invertebrates are multi-cellular organism (multi-cellular organisms are living things made up of many cells, elephant etc..) that inhabit a marine environment apart from the vertebrate members. Marine invertebrates comprise in many groups. This group of marine life includes animals such as sponges, jellyfish, clams, crabs, lobsters and sea stars etc etc...


Q: What does "octopus" mean ?
A: The word octopus means eight feet. Octopuses are  solitary, eight armed animals found on the ocean floor. There are more than a 100 different species. The giant octopus is the biggest one. This huge mollusc grows up to 23 ft (7 m)  from arm tip to arm tip, and weights up to 400 pounds (182 kg). The smallest of all is the Californian octopus, which is only 3/8 inch (1 cm) long.





Q: How does an octopus catch its prey ?
A: Octopuses generally eat small crabs. In order to catch prey, they use their arms and kill the prey by biting it with their tough beak. When the prey becomes totally paralyzed, octopuses suck out its flesh. Octopuses hunt mostly during the night.


Q: Why are squids known as the " ice cream con of the sea " ?
A: Squids are found in all the oceans of the world. They are known as the ice cream cone of the sea as they are a favourite food of many ocean dwellers. Female squids lay thousands of eggs in order to support a food chain. Squids have some of the largest eyes in proportion to their bodies. Squids have 10 arms, of which two are tentacles having flattened ends entirely covered with suckers.