Calcium Content in Cephalopods

Pr0teusUnbound

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Nov 6, 2012
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i remember reading somewhere that cephalopods concentrate unusual amounts of calcium in their flesh. is this true?

ive been trying to verify this for a while but the only piece of info ive come up with is that calamari has 15% of your daily value of calcium (whatever that means).
 
Stands to reason; Ca is a critical element for neurological function, & between the changing of colors/textures of their skin, & arm/tentacle/sucker control alone I'd imagine the need for Ca is quite high, & could be why concentration is so high in calamary. Wether or not its localized in the extremities, I have no idea. In fact, I have no idea if that's why it's high to begin with, just a hypothesis:wink: could just be diet...good question! I'd love to see what the experts say...
 
The last I read, octos have no specific calcium need but that was based upon having no hard parts (like a shell, the beak is chitin like fingernails) and may not have taken into consideration other factors.
 
I was basing my notion on the assumption that cephalopod's flesh must be HIGHLY innervated to undertake such functions. If this is the case, then elevated Ca levels could be due to more neural cells (thus more voltage dependent calcium channels) by mass. It'd be interesting to learn sodium content inrelation; despite living in salt water, these elements must be regulated within the tissue....I'd imagine, anyway. Marine biologist I am not...
 
paper? no, not really. im just trying to confirm if cephalopod calcium content is unusual compared to other animals. if so, im wondering if it has something to do with why cephs never colonized freshwater habitats.
 
I've wondered why no cephs exist in fresh water myself, living within minutes of both lakes Ontario & Erie. You're a fossil guy, do you know if there was ever a time when they inhabited fresh water? Please post back when you find anything out, I'd be interested in hearing...
 
Guess my answer was in your post: "never colonized fresh water habitats..." Now I'm even more curious as to what you come up with:wink:
 
crap... it looks like cephalopods may not have unusually high calcium levels. :oops:

i just did some googling on the nutrition facts of calamari, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish and none of them have calcium levels consistently above 15% DV. the calcium levels are usually 1-8%
DV but mineral levels rise to 15-25% when fried or steamed. sorry for the false alarm.
 
Good to know that the calcium need appears to be non-existent as I had seen in the past but this is kind of question is always worth a look to improve our tank environments even though the question revolved around another topic. Always looking for clues on better longevity :biggrin2:

As an aside, it does appear that nauts need to be fed WITH shells but octopuses remove them and don't appear to eat anything but the meat (none of the cartilage from crabs seems to be eaten either). We have seen at least one octo consistently devain shrimp in addition to peeling it!
 

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