cephalopod

/ˈsɛfələˌpɑd/

Other forms: cephalopods

Ocean animals that have a head and tentacles are cephalopods. The largest-known cephalopod is the colossal squid, which lives in the deepest part of the ocean and can grow to nearly 50 feet long.

Scientists are just beginning to understand how intelligent cephalopods are, after centuries of assuming their simple nervous systems meant they were simple creatures. Octopuses are probably the smartest of this marine mollusk class, able to solve puzzles and mazes and escape from just about any container. All cephalopods have a head and either eight or ten legs; the Greek roots of the word are kephalē, "head," and pod-, "foot."

Definitions of cephalopod

1. noun

   marine mollusk characterized by well-developed head and eyes and sucker-bearing tentacles
   synonyms: cephalopod mollusk

   types:

   chambered nautilus, nautilus, pearly nautilus

   cephalopod of the Indian and Pacific oceans having a spiral shell with pale pearly partitions

   dibranch, dibranchiate, dibranchiate mollusk

   cephalopods having two gills

   octopod

   a cephalopod with eight arms but lacking an internal shell

   decapod

   cephalopods having eight short tentacles plus two long ones

   devilfish, octopus

   bottom-living cephalopod having a soft oval body with eight long tentacles

   Argonaut, Argonauta argo, nautilus, paper nautilus

   cephalopod mollusk of warm seas whose females have delicate papery spiral shells

   squid

   widely distributed fast-moving ten-armed cephalopod mollusk having a long tapered body with triangular tail fins

   cuttle, cuttlefish

   ten-armed oval-bodied cephalopod with narrow fins as long as the body and a large calcareous internal shell

   Spirula peronii, spirula

   a small tropical cephalopod of the genus Spirula having prominent eyes and short arms and a many-chambered shell coiled in a flat spiral

   type of:

   mollusc, mollusk, shellfish

   invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell
2. adjective

   relating or belonging to the class Cephalopoda
   synonyms: cephalopodan