Brain size and structure. Cephalopod Sensory system. The nervous system of cephalopods is the most complex of all invertebrates. First, there is a high degree of… “The cephalopod nervous system: what evolution has made of the molluscan design,” in The Nervous Systems of Invertebrates: An Evolutionary and Comparative Approach, eds O. Breidbach and W. Kutsch (Basel: Springer), 115–138. …system is attained by the cephalopods (squids, cuttlefishes, and octopuses) among the mollusks and by the insects and spiders among the arthropods. The cartilaginous cranium protects the brain. Moreover, they have the well developed senses. Get facts about butterfly fish here. This development of the brain is similar between cephalopod species although the timing of lobe formation and rearrangement … The cephalopod nervous system is best described as The most advanced amongst molluscs Although snails and some other molluscs are hermaphroditic, most molluscs are either male or … J. Although the basic plan of these nervous systems is similar to that of the annelids, there are several advances. The core of the cephalopod circulatory system is a series of three beating hearts. doi: 10.1007/978-3-0348-9219-3_7 Its eyes, for example, are similar to ours and possess an iris, pupil, lens and retina. The morphological and physiological adaptations that the cephalopod sensory organs and nervous system underwent during the course of evolution are briefly summarized. The nervous system emerges as distant ganglia, some of them merging and fusing later to form the cephalopod CNS (Figure 2C). Cephalopoda Glossary A ventral view of this brain and the optic lobes can be found here . Though structured similarly to other mollusks, a cephalopod nervous system far surpasses the nervous systems of their closest molluscan relatives—the California sea slug has about 18,000 neurons while the common octopus, Octopus vulgaris, has roughly 200 million neurons in its brain. As you might expect based on its skills in camouflage and avoiding predators, the octopus possesses a well-developed nervous system as well as complex sensory organs. Cephalopods have large, well-developed brains, and their brain-to-body mass ratio is the largest among the invertebrates, falling between that of endothermic and ectothermic vertebrates.. Z. Cephalopod Nervous system. Large brain; Information processing; Giant axons; Speed proportional to size; Stellate ganglia ensure coordinated, forceful contraction -> speed! Young, the leading authority on the cephalopod nervous system in the latter half of the 20th century, divided the cephalopod brain into two regions: the supraesophageal mass and the subesophageal mass. The nervous system of Cephalopods is more complex than the other invertebrates since the brain is larger than other members of grastropods. 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