Imagine that you hand is made of jelly and you have to carve a roast using a knife that has no handle. The bare metal blade would rip through your hypothetical hand as easily as it would through the meat. It’s clearly no easy task and yet, squid have to cope with a very similar challenge every time they eat a meal.
The bodies of squid, like those of their relatives the cuttlefish and octopus, are mainly soft and pliant, with one major exception. In the centre of their web of tentacles lies a hard, sharp and murderous beak that resembles that of a parrot. The beak is a tool for killing and dismembering prey and the large Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas) is known to use its beak to sever the spinal cord of fishy prey, paralysing them for easy dining.
