9.Octopus and Starfish 1

An octopus is a mollusk that has no shell at all 2 It looks as if it is all head and arms

An octopus has eight (8) arms, called tentacles, which have many suckers on them 3

Suckers hold on tightly to objects they touch 4 The suckers help an octopus to crawl and to hold on to its food

An octopus moves by pulling itself along by its tentacles 5 It can also use a kind of jet propulsion to move

It pulls in water through its gills and sends it out very fast through a tube under its head 6 The force of the water moves the octopus backward

One way that an octopus can find food is by hiding among stones and seashells on the ocean floor 7 The octopus can change its color to match its surroundings

Small water animals that swim by usually do not see the octopus 8 The octopus can grab an animal with its tentacles

Most kinds of octopuses are as small as a person’s fist 9 How do they escape bigger animals that feed on them?

An octopus can squirt out a liquid, like ink, that blackens the water 10 The octopus then swims away

Giant octopuses that live in the Pacific Ocean have few enemies to swim away from 11 These octopuses can grow to be 30 feet long

Starfish live in all oceans 12 Fish is part of their name, but they are not fish but invertebrates

Starfish have a small central body, with a mouth on the bottom side 13 Most starfish have five arms that stick out from their bodies

Other kinds have more than 25 arms 14 Stiff spines cover their bodies and arms

Starfish are often dull yellow or orange but can be bright colors, too 15 They can be as small as ½ inch and as big as 3 feet wide

Starfish use their tube feet to move 16 These small tube feet are under each arm

Suction cups are attached to the feet 17 Suction cups help starfish to move

Starfish eat animals, especially like clams and other mollusks 18 A starfish catches a clam with its arms

The clam closes its shell to protect itself 19 Using its tube feet, the starfish forces the shell open a little bit

Then the starfish turns its stomach inside out and pushes it out of its mouth 20 It sticks its stomach into the opened clamshell and eats the soft clam body

Then the starfish pulls its stomach out of the clam 21 and puts it back into its own body

A starfish can grow new arms if its arms are broken off 22 This is called regeneration

In fact, if a starfish loses all its arms but one and most of its central body 23 a new body and new arms will grow

Starfish eat mollusks like clams and oysters that are valuable crops for fishermen 24 The fishermen may try to destroy starfish by cutting them into pieces

But the pieces grow into even more starfish! 25