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Coleoid cephalopods (including octopuses, squids and cuttlefish) have complex multicellular organs that they use to change colour rapidly, producing a wide variety of bright colours and patterns. Each chromatophore unit is composed of a single chromatophore cell and numerous muscle, nerve, glial , and sheath cells. [ 43 ]
Morphological change is the result of a change in the density of pigment containing cells and tends to change over longer periods of time. Physiological change, the kind observed in cephalopod lineages, is typically the result of the movement of pigment within the chromatophore, changing where different pigments are localized within the cell.
Diagram of a cephalopod's photophore, in vertical section. A photophore is a glandular organ that appears as luminous spots on marine animals, including fish and cephalopods. The organ can be simple, or as complex as the human eye, equipped with lenses, shutters, color filters, and reflectors; unlike an eye, however, it is optimized to produce ...
Reflectin proteins are likely distributed in the outer layer of cells called "sheath cells" that surround an organism's pigment cells also known as chromatocyte. [2] Specific sequences of reflectin ables cephalopods to communicate and camouflage by adjusting color and reflectivity.
Neocoleoidea (most living cephalopods) Coleoidea [ 1 ] [ 2 ] or Dibranchiata is one of the two subclasses of cephalopods containing all the various taxa popularly thought of as "soft-bodied" or "shell-less" (i.e. octopus , squid and cuttlefish ).
Volborthella, some fossils of which predate , was long thought to be a cephalopod, but discoveries of more detailed fossils showed its shell was not secreted, but built from grains of the mineral silicon dioxide (silica), and it was not divided into a series of compartments by septa as those of fossil shelled cephalopods and the living Nautilus are.
Vampire squid have eight arms but lack feeding tentacles (like octopods), and instead use two retractile filaments in order to capture food. These filaments have small hairs on them, made up of many sensory cells, that help them detect and secure their prey. They combine waste with mucus secreted from the suckers to form balls of food.
A cephalopod is any member of the biological order Cephalopoda, the group that contains all squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish. This category covers articles about cephalopods as individual species or groups.