octokidwriter;124951 said:
May I ask some more questions? I give them all at once as they are not too complicated (I hope)
- How long can an octopus live out of the water (on the average?)
I have had an octopus survive about 15 minutes before I got him back into water. I have seen info at the Seattle Aquarium that GPOs have been known to survive 20 minutes out of water. I would really imagine that it depends alot on the environment. If the octopus is out of water in really hot, dry air, I doubt it would make it 5 minutes. If the octopus could stay moist, (and at the right salinity, so rain is right out), I would image that the next limiting factor would be oxygen. If an octopus could stay sufficiently moist, I would imagine that one could live about 7 hours out of water before it died of "suffocation" (air drowning??), but that is just my semi-educated guess.
octokidwriter;124951 said:
- An octopus's beak seems to have a lot of strenght. What does that mean concretely? What can it bite through?
Octopuses can use their break to chip through clam shells, but they generally don't go around crushing things with their beaks. This is one of the amazing things about octopuses. If something is really hard to get into (say a clam that is stubborn about being eaten or something), they use something called a radula in their mouth to drill through the hard parts. The radula is kinda similar to your tongue, but with hundreds of saw teeth on it. These teeth can be moved by muscular action back and forth, creating an action similar to a chain saw, but instead of the teeth traveling all the way around, it is back and forth (I may not have said this as clearly as it could have been put, if you are confused, let me know and I will draw some pictures). With this radula the octopus will drill through these parts, and in the hole inject a small amount of venom that will kill or weaken the animal inside, and make it easy to pull open.[/QUOTE]
octokidwriter;124951 said:
- Would it be correct to say that the octopus arms are lips at the same time?
I am not quite sure what you mean by lips. They could be called their tongue, since each sucker has the ability to taste what it touches. (This is one characteristic of octopuses I would hate to have. As a marine biologist I handle some nasty stuff sometimes. I would hate to be tasting it all. It would make gloves more popular. And perhaps they would be flavored... I think I would personally prefer the orange gloves while dissecting....but I digress)
octokidwriter;124951 said:
- the use of "tentacles" or "arms": what is preferable?
Thanks again
Arms is preferred for octopus appendages. Technically octopuses have eight arms, and squid and cuttlefish have those eight arms and two tentacles. So the term tentacles in cephalopods is reserved for the appendages that squid and cuttlefish use to capture prey.
I hope that helps a bit...