In what animal group is the octopus?
This question calls for a guessing game. Is the octopus related to a fish or a frog, a snail or a serpent? Take your pick. Perhaps the snail strikes you as an unlikely relative for an octopus. Nevertheless, the snail and the octopus are distant cousins. The leggy octopus is classified in the animal phylum Mollusca,~ along with more than 70,000 other animals. We all know. that clams and oysters, scallops and an assortment of beautiful shellfishes are mollusks. These creatures may lead us to suspect that the term “mollusk” may mean crusty or perhaps armor plated. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mollusca is a scientific term coined from a Latin word for soft. All members of the clan are soft bodied creatures. Some wear protective clam type shells and some carry snail type shells on their backs. The octopus and his cousins are soft bodies mollusks with no crusty shells. Cousin cuttlefish has a sliver of bony crust buried in his soft tissues. This and other evidence has led zoologi
