edgepedia

Squids

16 articles

Bigfin reef squid

Bigfin reef squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana, oval squid) is a loliginid squid of shallow Indo-West Pacific coastal waters, actually a cryptic species complex, with fins over 90% of mantle length, a 4–6 month life cycle, and commercial fishery value.

Bigfin squid

Bigfin squid (Magnapinna spp., family Magnapinnidae) are elusive deep-sea squid with huge fins and extremely long arm/tentacle filaments, recorded from 1,578 to 6,212 m, known from 46 sightings and the distinctive 'elbow' pose.

Caribbean reef squid

Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea, formerly Loligo sepioidea), a loliginid squid from Bermuda to Venezuela, living to 100 m depth, schooling in groups of 10-30, and communicating by rapid skin-pattern change.

Chiroteuthidae

Chiroteuthidae (Gray, 1849) is a family of gelatinous deep-sea squids in Oegopsida, also called chiroteuthid squids, with genera Chiroteuthis, Asperoteuthis, Grimalditeuthis, and Planctoteuthis, a unique doratopsis paralarva, ammonium-chloride buoyancy chambers, and an ornamented tail.

Colossal squid

The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is a squid of the Southern Ocean and the heaviest living invertebrate, weighing up to 495 kg. Most known specimens come from sperm whale stomachs.

Cranchiidae

Cranchiidae, the glass squids, are a family of 13 genera and 60+ species of transparent pelagic oceanic squid, from about 100 mm to over 2,000 mm mantle length, buoyed by ammonium chloride in a coelomic chamber and including the colossal squid.

Firefly squid

Firefly squid (Watasenia scintillans, hotaru-ika), a small bioluminescent enope squid of the Sea of Japan with about 800 ventral photophores, ATP-dependent blue bioluminescence, and spring spawning runs in Toyama Bay, Japan.

Giant squid

Giant squid (Architeuthis dux), a deep-sea squid up to about 12-13 m verified length, with the largest eyes in the animal kingdom; preyed on by sperm whales, first filmed alive in its habitat in 2012.

Humboldt squid

Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas), jumbo flying squid, a large eastern Pacific ommastrephid squid reaching 2 m and 50 kg, with a ~1-year life, up to 32 million eggs, hypoxia-tolerant vertical migration, and the world's largest squid fishery.

Illex argentinus

Illex argentinus, commonly the Argentine shortfin squid (Spanish: Pota; Japanese: Matsuika), is a squid of the western South Atlantic whose fishery has exceeded one million tons in some years.

Japanese flying squid (スルメイカ)

Japanese flying squid (スルメイカ, Todarodes pacificus), an ommastrephid squid of the Northwest Pacific fished by Japan, Korea, and China; one-year life cycle, three seasonal spawning cohorts, catches peaked near 668,000 t in Japan in 1968, now overfished or collapsed amid warming seas.

Lolliguncula brevis

Lolliguncula brevis, the Atlantic brief squid (Blainville, 1823), a small euryhaline loliginid squid from Nova Scotia to southern Brazil; North and South Atlantic populations are genetically distinct sister species.

Neon flying squid

Neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartramii), also called red flying squid or aka-ika, a large oceanic ommastrephid squid of temperate and subtropical waters worldwide, with a one-year life span, North Pacific fall and winter-spring cohorts, and a major jigging fishery.

Oegopsida

Oegopsida (open-eye squids) is an order of over 20 families of oceanic squid within Decapodiformes, named by Orbigny in 1845; established by ~100 Ma, with sucker-ring-derived arm hooks and a key role in oceanic biological pump energy flow.

Ommastrephidae

Ommastrephidae (flying squids), family of oceanic cephalopod squids in order Oegopsida, established by Steenstrup 1857. Subfamilies Illicinae, Todarodinae, Ommastrephinae, Todaropsinae; most important commercial squid family; includes Dosidicus gigas and Ommastrephes.

Squid

Squid: marine cephalopod molluscs with eight arms, two tentacles, and a chitinous gladius, in orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, Bathyteuthida, Sepiolida, and Idiosepiida; major world fisheries, ~3.3 million tonnes cephalopod catch in 2001.