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There are 25 Gasteropods and only one cephalopod, Nautilus Freieslebeni, which is also found in the German Zechstein. Spirifera alata, Schloth. Syn. Trigonotreta undulata, Sowerby., King's Monograph. King and Howse.
It may indeed be likened to an enormous many- limbed organism of an antediluvian time partaking of the cephalopod in shape lying lifeless, and covered with a thin green cloth, which hides its substance, while revealing its contour.
And yet what monsters these devilfish are, what vitality our Creator has given them, what vigor in their movements, thanks to their owning a triple heart! Sheer chance had placed us in the presence of this squid, and I didn't want to lose this opportunity to meticulously study such a cephalopod specimen.
Again, take the case of the introduction of a giant Cephalopod or fish amongst a population of Molluscs and Crustacea. The toughest, the speediest, the most alert, the most retiring, or the least conspicuous, will be the most apt to survive and breed.
Although the Mesozoic era is shorter than the Paleozoic, as measured by the thickness of their strata, yet its duration must be reckoned in millions of years. Its predominant life features are the culmination and the beginning of the decline of reptiles, amphibians, cephalopod mollusks, and cycads, and the advent of marsupial mammals, birds, teleost fishes, and angiospermous plants.
But they are the only existing members of the group which possess chambered, siphunculated shells; and it is utterly impossible to trace any physiological connection between the very peculiar structural characters of a cephalopod and the presence of a chambered shell.
Still earlier, there were gigantic mollusks and sea scorpions, a cephalopod larger than a man; then gigantic fishes and amphibians and reptiles, followed by enormous mammals. But the geologic record shows that these huge forms did not continue. The mollusks that last unchanged through millions of years are the clam and the oyster of our day.
In the beginning of this chapter examples have been given of the very diverse mode in which similar results have in many instances been arrived at; on the other hand, we have in the fish and the cephalopod not only the eye, but at one and the same time the ear also similarly evolved, yet with complete independence.
Vincente reached down for the cephalopod, allowing it to wrap some of the tentacles about him, then pried its grasp from the boat with the handle of the gaff. He made no attempt to free himself from the squid, but as he stood still for a minute or two, the creature voluntarily released its hold, falling to the bottom of the boat.
For in the higher Annulosa, such as the dragon-fly, we meet with an eye of an unquestionably very high degree of efficiency, but formed on a type of structure only remotely comparable with that of the fish or the cephalopod.
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