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Cephalopoda   Listen
noun
Cephalopoda  n. pl.  (Zool.) The highest class of Mollusca. Note: They have, around the front of the head, a group of elongated muscular arms, which are usually furnished with prehensile suckers or hooks. The head is highly developed, with large, well organized eyes and ears, and usually with a cartilaginous brain case. The higher forms, as the cuttlefishes, squids, and octopi, swim rapidly by ejecting a jet of water from the tubular siphon beneath the head. They have a pair of powerful horny jaws shaped like a parrot's beak, and a bag of inklike fluid which they can eject from the siphon, thus clouding the water in order to escape from their enemies. They are divided into two orders, the Dibranchiata, having two gills and eight or ten sucker-bearing arms, and the Tetrabranchiata, with four gills and numerous arms without suckers. The latter are all extinct except the Nautilus. See Octopus, Squid, Nautilus.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cephalopoda" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Ascidian are developed in the walls of the cavity in question; and an aquiferous chamber of smaller dimensions has the same relation to the kidney in Lamellibranchiata—in Gasteropoda, Heteropoda, Pteropoda, and dibranchiate Cephalopoda. But although such is likely enough to be the case, we do not know at present that the aquiferous chambers in any of the last named mollusks attain an extension similar to that which obtains ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... any other of the mollusca. If the lower had not an anterior existence, the higher were not developed from them. It is also a conclusive argument against the system, that while the intermediate mollusca are very numerous, the cephalopoda, which were so early introduced, and are the higher forms that were so numerous at certain times, are now narrowed down to a ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... mollusca and crustacea are very careful and minute. The rest of the book is devoted to a description of the organs of sense and voice; of sleep, and the distinctions of sex. The accurate knowledge which Aristotle exhibits of the anatomy and habits of marine animals, such as the Cephalopoda and the larger Crustacea, leaves no doubt that he derived it from actual observation. Professor Owen says, "Respecting the living habits of the Cephalopoda, Aristotle is more rich in detail than any other zoological author." What is now spoken ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... stand the cuttle-fishes, forming (with the Nautilus and many extinct animals, such as ammonites and their allies) the great class Cephalopoda. The Cephalopoda, such as the cuttle-fish (Sepia) and the Poulp (Octopus), have now become familiar objects through our aquaria, where their very eccentric forms and remarkable movements naturally attract attention. To this group also belongs Spirula, the coiled and chambered ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... the last representative of the Cephalopoda with partitioned shells, the Nautilus of the Southern Seas, remains faithful to the ancient design; it has not improved upon its distant predecessors. It has altered the position of the siphuncle, has placed it in the centre instead of leaving it on the back, but it still whirls its spiral ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre



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