What Are the Suction Cups Used for on the Tentacles of a Squid?

Squid are close relatives of octopus. Both are highly intelligent mollusks and predatory carnivores. Most squid species have 8 arms and two tentacles, which are longer and more flexible and end in a broad, club or "hand."

  1. Tentacles

    • Squid are close relatives of cuttlefish, octopus, and the chambered nautilus.

      The squid's tentacles evolved from the ancestral mollusk foot. They are used as sense organs and for manipulating objects.

    Function

    • Tentacles and arms are used to grasp prey and fight off predators. Most squid are pelagic (free-swimming), so the arms and tentacles are not used for crawling as much as they are in bottom dwellers like the octopus.

    Suction Cups

    • Arms and tentacles are covered with suction organs, which consist of a stalk or ring, a suction cup and hard, chitinous hooks. These make the squid less safe to handle than the octopus, who lacks hooks.

    Grasping Prey

    • The squid uses its hooked suckers to grasp prey, especially to catch and hold onto free-swimming fish. The hooks add gripping power. Squid eat fish, crustaceans and other mollusks.

    Escaping from Predators

    • Squid tentacles have many uses.

      The hooked suction cups are also used defensively to help squid who are caught by predators maneuver so that they can bite back with their hard, sharp beaks.

    Squid Love

    • In many species, the underside of the male's left club develops at puberty into a hectocotylus, an organ which he uses to transfer sperm packages to the female during courtship and mating.