Tentacle

In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work mainly like muscular hydrostats. Most forms of tentacles are used for grasping and feeding. Many are sensory organs, variously receptive to touch, vision, or to the smell or taste of particular foods or threats. Examples of such tentacles are the "eye stalks" of various kinds of snails. Some kinds of tentacles have both sensory and manipulatory functions.

The word tentillum literally means "little tentacle". However, irrespective of size, it usually refers to a side branch of a larger tentacle. In some cases such tentilla are specialised for particular functions; for example, in the Cnidaria tentilla usually bear cnidocytes, whereas in the Ctenophora they usually bear collocytes.

Invertebrates

Molluscs

Many molluscs have tentacles of one form or another. The most familiar are those of the pulmonate land snails, which usually have two sets of tentacles on the head: when extended the upper pair have eyes at their tips; the lower pair are chemoreceptors. Both pairs are fully retractable muscular hydrostats, but they are not used for manipulation or prey capture.

Tentacles (film)

Tentacles (Italian title: Tentacoli) is a 1977 Italian-American horror film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda. Although the film was intended to cash-in of the success of Jaws, Tentacles also bears numerous resemblences to the 1955 science fiction horror film It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Plot

Ocean Beach, a seaside tourist resort, has come under attack by a giant octopus, which captures and devours human swimmers and boaters, picking the skeletons clean of flesh and bone marrow. Marine expert Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins) and crusading newspaper reporter Ned Turner (John Huston) suspect the construction of an underwater tunnel by the Trojan company, owned by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda). Trojan has been using radio signals that have been "above regulated levels", somehow maddening the octopus and causing it to attack human beings. In the end, the octopus is killed by Gleason's pair of killer whales.

Cast

Tentacles (novel)

Tentacles is a 2009 young adult science fiction novel by Roland Smith and the sequel to Cryptid Hunters. It is one of 25 award-winning books by Smith. At Barnes & Noble, it has a sales rank of 18,005 and on the "Lexile" scale, it received a rating equal to "740L". It is reviewed by Barnes & Noble as a "must purchase" for libraries and schools.

Plot

Tentacles begins as the protagonists from Cryptid Hunters board the Coelacanth, a presumably haunted ship, on a voyage led by Dr. Wolfe to capture a giant squid alive. During the voyage, there are Mokele-mbembe eggs (which Marty and Grace had found in the Congo in Cryptid Hunters) incubating in a laboratory restricted to most of the crew. Unbeknownst to Wolfe, Blackwood's thug, Butch is on board, please. on stealing the eggs and Grace for his boss. The book culminates in a showdown between Blackwood and Wolfe, ending in Ted Bronson, Wolfe's partner's, successful capture of a squid, though Blackwood, thinking Wolfe and the rest of the crew to be dead, escapes with the hatchlings, and Grace. Unbeknownst to Wolfe, Grace tricked Blackwood into taking her, with the dragonspy hidden on her, allowing her to be one step ahead of Blackwood.