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Webster 1913 Edition


Cephalopoda


Cephˊa-lop′o-da

(sĕfˊȧ-lŏp′ō̍-dȧ)
,
Noun.
pl.
[NL., gr. Gr.
κεφαλή
head +
-poda
: cf. F.
céphalopode
.]
(Zool.)
The highest class of
Mollusca
.
☞ 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
.

Definition 2024


Cephalopoda

Cephalopoda

Translingual

Proper noun

Cephalopoda

  1. A taxonomic class within the phylum Mollusca – the cephalopods.

Hypernyms

Hyponyms

References