Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles. Squid are strong swimmers and certain species can "fly" for short distances out of the water.
Marine invertebrates are multicellular animals that inhabit a marine environment and are invertebrates, lacking a vertebral column. In order to protect themselves, they may have evolved a shell or a hard exoskeleton, but this is not always the case.
As on land and in the air, invertebrates make up a great majority of all macroscopic life in the sea. Invertebrate sea life includes the following groups, some of which are phyla:
There are a number of marine invertebrates that use minerals that are present in the sea in such minute quantities that they were undetectable until the advent of spectroscopy. Vanadium is concentrated by some tunicates for use in their blood cells to a level ten million times that of the surrounding seawater. Other tunicates similarly concentrate niobium and tantalum. Lobsters use copper in their respiratory pigment hemocyanin, despite the proportion of this metal in seawater being minute. Although these elements are present in vast quantities in the ocean, their extraction by man is not economic.