Cephalopods

We know them as octopus and squids, and they have several other cousins around today. If you've ever seen the TV pseudo-documentary The Future is Wild, which premiered on Animal Planet a few years back, at the end they portrayed squids as being the dominant creatures on land. I watched the documentary and I thought I would like it, but it turned out I really didn't. I liked some of their mammals and some of the birds, with the exception of the quail that live underground and crawls in a lizard-like fashion. However, The Future is Wild completely lost my support when they started talking about mammals being "farmed" by large spiders!! That was too stupid!! Spiders I think have evolved as far as they are going to! They've had basically the same form for 300 million years. I don't think they've got much more to do as far as evolving goes.

Anyway, back to squids. In TFIW (The Future is Wild), they portrayed small, tree-swinging squids they called "squibbons". GOD I HATE that name!!!! But then "mutt-names" always sound dumb!! I always try to stay away from mutt names for my animals! Unless it is in the latin form. But that is different. Even today we have animals whose latin names combine those of other animals. Like Hippotigris (tiger-horse) for zebras, Hippocamelus (camel-horse) for guemal deer, Myictis (mouse-weasel) for a small, tree-dwelling dasyure, and Cynictis (dog-weasel) for the yellow mongoose. But I don't believe in doing the same for the common names because these are their own animals. Anyway, TFIW thinks these so-called "squibbons" will be swinging from tree to tree like gibbons and there is no way that can ever happen!! Even with extra muscle and cartilage, it is not at all possible. Gibbons have bones specially placed in their hands for absorbing the shock of impact, squids do not have this. Cartilage is too soft. If they hit a branch at top speed, the cartilage and tendons holding the muscle would just disintegrate. And forget about them being able to leap from one branch to another. IMO, "squibbons" would be better off just creeping up trees like tree snails, and staying in one place. As for the "mega squid", forget about them!! Such a creature would be impossible for it to exist!!! They are too big to inhabit forests and too big to be carried around by simply cartilage and muscle! The animals that do have a skeletal structure of nothing but cartilage only live in the water, they never come on land. Those that do, too easily get crushed under their weight. Like if a great white shark were to beach it's self. It'd be too heavy on it's self to even breathe. And all that weight would make it impossible to support on leg structure made simply of cartilage and muscle.

In order for squids to retreat to a land-based existence, they would have to secrete something (like slime) in order to protect their skin from the sun. So it is my guess squids that retreat to land will have a slimy coat-covering. The beak of the animals will move above the arms, so they can use their arms for crawling. Crawling in a way like they grasp the ground and pull, like a sloth on the ground. Same for climbing squids, only they grasp up and pull, very slowly. For squids that feed on grass, they can reach out their arms and pull the grass to their beak and eat that way. Same with leaves, just reach and pull to their beak, and cut off the parts of the leaves they love and eat it that way.

I just got an idea this afternoon, for a squid that even hunts like a spider. Only their "web" is a long thin string of sticky slime. Like I said, all squids of this age secrete slime. But this species, I will call it Arasoupia, secretes a sticky slime from it's mouth to one of it's arms, sits on a tree branch and dangles the drip, awaiting an insect or other small creature to get caught in the sticky goo. Then the squid acts, pulling the droplet with the animal or insect attached to the end up to it's mouth, delivers a poisonous, paralyzing bite and eating the creature. So those are my ideas for tomorrow's squids.