Where is beak

Like all squid and octopus, and their relatives, the colossal squid has a beak. This is essentially the mouth of the squid, and the first stage of the digestive system. The beak is a hard structure rather like a parrot's beak. However, unlike a parrot's beak, the lower beak of the colossal squid overlaps the upper beak. The beak is made of chitin and is surrounded by muscular tissue. The colossal squid uses its beak to chop and slice up prey before the food is passed down the oesophagus into the stomach and digestive organs.

The squid has to reduce the food to smaller chunks because its oesophagus is narrow and passes through the middle of the squid's doughnut-shaped brain. Inside the beak, just before the start of the oesophagus, the food is shredded up further by the radula, which is rather like a tongue with teeth. Further teeth palatine teeth line the cheeks palatine palps. The radula moves like a conveyor belt to shunt food down the oesophagus as it is processed by the beak.

Browse beading. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits. Word of the Day goodwill. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top. English American Translations. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:. Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge. Tools to create your own word lists and quizzes. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans. Severe feather pecking is a welfare problem where birds vigorously peck at and pull out the feathers of other birds.

Beak trimming can cause both acute and chronic pain, and can lead to difficulty feeding. There is a need to move away from beak trimming and instead focus on good management strategies, environmental complexity and enrichment, the selection of appropriate genetics, small group sizes, and more research to elucidate the causes of severe feather pecking.

In Australia, beak trimming is commonly performed when chicks are one day of age. For layer hens, a follow-up beak trim may also occur later in life, between 8 and 12 weeks of age.

Birds are often re-trimmed in order to prevent re-growth of the beak tip and subsequent damage due to severe feather pecking. The most common methods of beak trimming are through the use of infrared technology, and hot blades. Infrared beak trimming is performed with specialised equipment at the hatchery on day-old chicks using a high intensity energy source which penetrates the outer layer of the beak.