| Decapodiformes | |
|---|---|
| Juvenile cephalopod from plankton Antarctica |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Cephalopoda |
| cohort: | Neocoleoidea |
| Superorder: | Decapodiformes Leach, 1817[1] |
| Orders | |
| Synonyms | |
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Decapodiformes is a superorder of Cephalopoda, which includes all species with ten limbs; the name derives from the Greek word meaning ten feet. The ten limbs are divided into 8 short arms and 2 long tentacles. It is presumed that an ancestral coleoid had five identical pairs of limbs, and that one branch evolved a modified arm pair IV and became the Decapodiformes species. Another branch evolved and then eventually lost its arm pair II, becoming the Octopodiformes.
The superorder of Decapodiformes includes: