Beak

[Hajar]

Brutus now IS afraid of Neville and has gone back to living behind the rocks.

 

[Terri]

Well, I almost posted earlier that Brutus was a fearless little creature...interesting seeing the beak and the ?siphon, cool watching him use the siphon to stay afloat.

 

[Hajar]

Brutus actually is a pretty fearless creature - just up to the threshold of self preservation. The ability to regenerate limbs helps, even between molts. I've learnt a lot from Neville already - the extendable-retractable tentacles, sticky, with a pattern a bit reminiscent of gecko feet at first glance; the pre- and post-ocular tentacles; the bulb-like shape of the buccal mass; the strangeness of the pinhole camera eye; the maneuverability of the animal, with siphon pointed forwards, backwards, sideways at will.

 

[Hajar]

Who's beak is this?

.. from the Cretaceous of Hjula, Lebanon.

 

[Terri]

....good question

 

[DWhatley]

I am totally not familiar with IDing anything like this BUT you might grab a pair of blue and red glasses and look over this site:

Links to cephalopod beaks

You may not find this one but the site is worth knowing about for future examination and is interesting in its own right.

 

[Hajar]

Well, the beautiful thing about this one is that it is still in place in the fossil of it's octopus owner - a Keuppia levante.

 

[Hajar]

and thank you for the link D! I just browsed through the Octopodiformes. In the photo above you can just see the lower beak offset to the right.

 

[Hajar]

Here's that beak inside its octopus owner.