Cephalopod Taxonomy

 

Cephalapod Taxonomy in Sanskrit

I will name the cephalopods into Sanskrit. It is a shame that Indian literature has little to no attestation of cephalopods, which means that I am mainly starting from scratch. But here goes. Cephalopods are basically octopodes, squids, and nautluses, ammonites, etc. They are molluscs charecterised by a head with a sac or organs on the top and "feet" (arms and tentacles) on the bottom. Between their arms is parrot-like beak. Cephalopods, being molluscs have shells, with the exception being the octopus. For squids the shell is on the inside. 

Below is the phylogenetic tree for the Cephalopods. This is not how you draw a phylogenetic tree, but I did it this way for convenience.

Before I continue, there is no true definition of what a "squid" is in current taxonomy. However, in my taxonomy, I have defined a Squid as being those fo the clade Decapodimorpha or "having 10 feet". On that note, let us cover the difference between arms and tentacles. Arms are the the limbs which have suction cups down its entire length. Tentacles are those that have suction cups only at the tips. So Octopuses have 8 arms but no tentacles. Squids have 8 arms and 2 tentacles. 

In my system these Cephalopod limbs will be both called "feet" (पात्) or "arm" (भुज​). A sucker is चूषक​.

A arm in the sense of a limb with suckers down its entire length will be called अतिचूषकभुज​. A tentacle is "having suction cups at the tip" or अग्रचूषकभुज​.

So now that is out of the way, let us start naming the taxa. The first is Cephalopods, which means "head footed" for obvious reasons. There is a Sanskrit word that seems to be related to the Greek word "Kephalon", which is कपल​. Thus "Head Foot" , or Cephalopod, in Sanskrit is कपलपात् or कपलभुज.

Octopus of octopodiformes is "Eight footed" or "Eight armed", which would be अष्टपात् or अष्टभुज​. The latter is actually taken from the Sanskrti Dictionary of Spoken Sanskrit. Squids of Decopodomorpha would be "Ten footed" or "Ten armed", so दशपात् or दशभुज​.

Cuttlefish by the way would be a squid in this system and are so named by their cuttle bone, which in Sanskrit is समुद्रफेण​. Thus Cuttle fish would be "having a cuttle bone" or समुद्रफेणिन्.I am not the first to make this word, it already exists in Hindi and I got it from that.  

Both octopuses and squids belong to the group Coleoda. They have their shell on the inside, except for most octopuses, which makes the name ironic. It is probably true that ancient ancestors have shells. But even in octipuses there is one octopus lineage to preserve its shell, the Argonaut. If we are to call the group "having an inner shell", it would be अन्तर्कञ्चुक​. Another name would be "bag organism" as the organ sack of squids and octopodes look like a bag. In fact in Telugu, these creatures would be called sanchula jiivi​ or "bag organism". In Sanskrit that could be स्यूतजीविन्.

Next comes to Ammonites. The fossils of these are actually attested in Sanskrit literature, but the ancients probably didn;t knwo that these were fossils. These are none other than the holy Shalagrama Shila, which are sacred to Vishnu. The Puranas say that Vishnu assumed the form of a mountain and worms bore wholes into that mountain, which formed the Shalagrama Shila. We now know that they are ammonites fossils. The name comes from the Shalagrama village, and Shalagrama is the short hand Sanskrit name for the fossils. Thus Ammonites could be "organism of the Shalagrama (Shila)". That is शालग्रामजीव​ or शालग्रामशिलाजीव​.

next comes the nautlus. This looks like an ammonit but is not an ammonite. In fact ammonites are more cloesely related to Octopuses and Squids than to Nautluses. For this we will just add on the prefix "अप-" to the word for ammonite. Thus अपशालग्रामजीव.​

Conclusion

We have named broadly the Cephalopod groups. I may update this sometime in the future. Here is the caldogram in Sanskrit:

Cephalopoda: कपलपात् or कपलभुज

    Nautaloidae (Nautilus):अपशालग्रामजीव

    Ammonoidae (Ammonites): शालग्रामजीव​ or शालग्रामशिलाजीव​

    Coleodae: अन्तर्कञ्चुक or स्यूतजीविन्

        Octopodomorpha (Octopus):  अष्टपात् or अष्टभुज

        Decapodomorpha (Squid):दशपात् or दशभुज

            Cuttlefish: समुद्रफेणिन्