Do Octopus Have Beaks? If Yes, Are They Two or More? Find Out What You Need To Know

You can be wondering Do Octopus Have Beaks? This might be a shocking or surprising question to do making research about Octopus. As we recently wrote about; an Octopus Beak – the 5 Amazing Features You Need To Know! we gave some features and why this is possible.

However, even though it’s hard to believe, that octopus have beaks. But hold on, it gets even cooler. Behind that beak, octopuses hide even stranger things that help them stay alive.

Put on your scuba gear, because we’re going to dive deep into some facts about octopuses that you won’t believe!

Every octopus has a hooked beak like a parrot’s in the middle of its underside, between its arms. It’s also retractable, so when an octopus isn’t using it, it can pull it into its body, like a cat’s claws. This makes it hard to see.

Octopuses are carnivores, which means they only eat other animals in the sea. And over millions of years of evolution, their beak has changed to help them get the most out of their meaty meals.

Ever seen the beak of a cuttlefish? Watch this dwarf cuttlefish eat a grass shrimp!

Footage Via: Seattle Aquarium

Published on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, by Warren K Carlyle IV

<<>>The Fact<<>>

Most of the time, an octopus likes to eat crabs and clams, which have hard shells or exoskeletons to protect themselves from being eaten. But octopuses have found a clever way to get around, or rather, through, these defenses.

READ; 251 Good, Cute, Famous, And Funny Octopus Names

Octopuses can drill into or break open these hard shells with their radula and salivary papillae (more on that later). Then, they use their beak like a pair of scissors to cut soft food like fish into bite-sized pieces.

Sushi, anyone?

If you also have the cephalotoxin, a poisonous weapon, you can’t go wrong with your meal. Octopuses make this poison and inject it into their prey, which makes them unable to move. This makes it easier for them to handle their food and keeps them safe from the crab’s painful claws.

A look at the beak of an octopus! Look at all of those fools!

Posted on September 8, 2018, by Warren K Carlyle IV

Do Octopuses Eat With Their Beaks?

Octopuses can cut meat with their jaws, but they don’t chew with them. They do something MUCH more interesting.

An octopus will use a special tongue called a radula to drill a hole through the hard shells of its prey and get to the meat inside.

It’s also like a cheese grater with lots of small, rough barbs that scrape down big chunks of meat into smaller pieces that are easier for them to swallow.

This is important because the small esophagus is in the middle of the brain, so food pieces can’t be too big.

Imagine having to eat a steak with nothing but a cheese grater, and you’ve got the right idea.

The only question left is how many licks it takes to get to the middle of a crab.

Octopus Beaks resource

>>a. A schematic drawing of a sagittal section through an octopus’s buccal mass to show where the upper and lower beaks and other feeding structures are.
>>b and c: The upper and lower beaks of two octopuses from Antarctica: bAdelieledone polymorphac. Pareledone turqueti.

What We Can Learn From Octopus Beaks

By looking at an animal’s bones, scientists can learn a lot about how it changed over time. Most of the time, this means looking at things like shells or bones that are left behind.

But how do they find out about our friend the octopus, which has no bones? The answer is easy: look for the beaks!

Octopus beaks are made of chitin, which is a hard material that is also used to make lobster and crab shells. These beaks are TOUGH, too.

READ; 251 Good, Cute, Famous, And Funny Octopus Names

So tough, in fact, that scientists found the octopus’s beaks in the stomachs of sharks and whales, where they hadn’t been eaten.

Beaks can even turn into fossils that help us learn about the ancestors of the cephalopods we know today. Paleontologists recently found the fossilized beak of a squid called Haboroteuthis Poseidon.

Based on how big the beak was, it’s likely that this squid was as big as the giant squid. It was twice as big as the colossal squid of today.