Ellen bennett, age 10, of nashville, tenn., for her question:

Is a squid different from an octopus?

The big octopus is known as the devilfish because he looks like such a fearsome fellow. Actually, he is quite shy and not nearly as devilish as the squid. What's more, the squid has 10 arms. Two are extra long and strong to grab and hold his struggling victims.

The largest squids and octopuses are monsters of the deep, and down there below the sunlit surface it is too dark to see the differences between them. But their smaller relatives 11ve in shallow, shore waters where it is easy to tell the squids from the octopuses. A squid has 10 long arms. An octopus has only eight. If you do not have t1me to count them, you can recognize the squid's two extra arms at a glance. They are about twice as long as his other eight arms.

The body of an octopus looks like a round fleshy bag.  A squid is shaped like a torpedo with a pair of rippling fins down his sides.  He is more likely to be seen jetting himself at high speed through the water.     The baggy bodied octopus spends more time walking on the bottom, often like a ballet dancer on the tips of his toes a squid likes the company of his kinfolk and hundreds of the smaller ones dart through the water like flocks of flying arrows. An octopus is more timid and shy and tends to lead a lonely life. He stays on the bottom near a rocky shelter where he can hide from his foes. He is a c1ever and patient hunter and often waits hours for a tasty shellfish to emerge from its burrow. The squid likes to grab a fishy dinner as he darts through the water. He tends to be a bolder and a fiercer hunter.

The arms of both the squid and the octopus are muscular tentacles to grasp fish and shellfish and stuff this food into their beak like jaws. The underside of the tentacles are fitted with neat rows of round suckers to grip their struggling victims. Swarms of fist sized squids throng the salty seas and countless fist sized octopuses lead more quiet lives on the ocean floors.

The biggest octopus lives in a deep, dark underwater cave. He can spread his great arms in a circle 20 feet wide. The giant squid of the deep ocean has two 30 foot arms that can span more than 50 feet. His body measures five feet around and 18 feet long. He is the giant of all the world's backboneless animals.

All squids and octopuses belong in the cephalopoda class, the stomach headed ones. The boneless body of a cephalopod is a baggy stomach with a short neck to fix it onto his fleshy head. Both squids and octopuses jet prop el themselves backward with squirts of water. Both squirt ink to befuddle their foes and both can change colors. An octopus often glows with a rosy blush and when upset he twinkles with wavering grays and blues, pinks and yellows.