Active marine predators: The sensory world of cephalopods

Abstract

Most cephalopods are voracious and very mobile predators with highly developed sense organs that rival the equivalent vertebrate sense organs in complexity. A brief description is given of cephalopod predation and the sense organs that are directly, or indirectly, involved: (i) the vertebrate‐like lens eyes with their complex extraocular eye muscle system; (ii) the epidermal head and arm lines which are analogous to the lateral lines of fishes and aquatic amphibians; (iii) the vestibular analogue statocysts with receptor systems for linear (gravity) and angular accelerations; (iv) the proprioceptive neck receptor organ which controls head‐to‐body positions; (v) the sucker and muscle mechanoreceptors; and (vi) the contact and distance chemoreceptors. In addition, the possibility of hearing is discussed.