Is this the real Magnapinna?

Steve O'Shea

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Fresh back from another gallavant around New Zealand we've picked up a few new squid from the New Zealand region. Albeit damaged, the attached is most unusual and could well be the true Magnapinna (rather than the 'mystery squid' with the 10 long poorly differentiated appendages (8 assumed to be arms, 2 tentacles).

There's a suite of other taxa in the collection that represent first records for New Zealand - a few that have me scratching my head. Quite sensational material! We've also got a fully mature Taningia and 2 more Architeuthis, something that could well be a massive, mature Echinoteuthis, and some absolutely bizarre Chiroteuthis specimens.

I'm posting online a few images of the ?Magnapinna, but the identification may change as more detailed work is undertaken on relationships between this specimen and others referred to Mastigoteuthis (s.l.).

O

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The buccal membranes attach DDVV (to the dorso-lateral side of arms 1 and 2 and to the ventro-lateral face of arms 3 and 4). The suckers are biserial on each of the arms basally and distally, but the distal half to quarter of each of arms 1, 2 and 3 has the suckers crowded in 3 to 4 rows - they secondarily assume biseriality for the distal-most quarter.

The tentacles have been lost at capture. The dorsal mantle length is 153 mm, the specimen an immature female. The fins are extremely muscular and thick, very Taningia-like in appearance. No filaments are apparent at the ends of any arms (characteristic of larval/paralarval Magnapinna). There are no hooks on any arms, and the arms are short and muscular (unlike the inordinately long arms of the deep-sea brute referred to ?Magnapinna).

Anyone want to guess at what we have here? It could be some bizarre form of a previously described Mastigoteuthis (s.l.) species .... but it doesn't look right to me.
O
 
My personal favourite is the uninformative shot! It looks so like some I've taken (OK lots :frown: ) and chucked in the back of the cupboard !!!

But what a great animal! looking forward to hearing more reports on it (& all the others!!)

J
 
Is not Magnapinna

Hello,
I just subscribe to the list. I am writing in reply to the Magnapinna subject.

I examined the photos posted by Steve O. about the specimen that seems to be Magnapinna. Actually, is not.

It is a member of the Mastigoteuthidae, but definitely is a new species,
and why not, a new genus (Osheateuthis) Why not.

I have data from another specimen also from New Zealand waters with the same characteristics, this is a male of 96mm ML, fully mature. The main feature to separate it from other mastigoteuthid species is of course the size and arrangement of suckers, mainly in the distal third.

One more specimen, very damaged (only head and arms) examined in the NHM in London have the same features, I do not have the data but I suspect that is from the Atlantic Ocean.

Well, if you think my data are useful we can put them together to described the new taxa.

Regards,
Alejandro
 
Hi Alejandro. Thanks for posting (for those that don't know Alejandro, he has published extensively on Mastigoteuthidae, and actually lives in Christchurch, New Zealand). Nice to have you aboard the SS www.Tonmo.com.

Are you aware of other species of 'Mastigoteuthis' (s.l.) with the same distribution (number of rows) of suckers on the distal portion of the arms? This, and the general muscular nature of the brute, lead me to believe it was something 'different', but instead of referring to it as a new species I made the suggestion that it was Magnapinna (as the adult/subadult of Magnapinna was unknown). The enormous fins of the larval/juvenile Magnapinna are similar to those of this particular species.

It is just about impossible to see how the larval/juvenile form attributed to Magnapinna is conspecific with the deep-sea long-armed form tentatively atrributed to this genus, without intermediate-sized specimens. There is no way that the New Zealand specimens are the same as this deep-water long-armed form (this I know). Have any long-armed brutes been found (that you are aware of?), or any intermediate-sized 'Magnapinna' (a pic would be dynamite).

I've two other 'Mastigoteuthis' species here (both await description from NZ waters), one is 'giant sized' (and frozen), the other is large bodied (pickled many years ago); both are known from single specimens only. I'm still trying to get my head around the Mastigoteuthis, Idioteuthis, Magnoteuthis, Echinoteuthis business (the species allocation did change throughout a number of papers); I don't believe that all/most should be lumped together in Mastigoteuthis (as on TOL).

I showed the pics (attached in earlier posting) of the thing attributed to ?Magnapinna to Dick Young; he didn't think it was Magnapinna (s.s.) either and suggested M. hjorti (but it was just a guess, and I don't think he was too happy with the suggestion); the number of sucker rows on those arms was a real problem. Does your Atlantic specimen have tentacles/clubs? Have you illustrations of gladius morphology, beaks, sucker-ring dentition?

Quite a few of the macrobenthic/benthopelagic invertebrates found in NZ waters have NZ/North Atlantic distributions; this is not without parallel.

Looking forward to some discussion here
Cheers
Steve
 
Hi Alejandro

If you're down in Dunedin, Look us up! Kerry & I are always keen to meet other ceph enthusiasts! That goes for anyone else of course :biggrin2: It's just that Alejandro is on the MAINLAND! Just call the lab or aquarium (it's in the book) or pm us if you're coming down!

Cheers

J
 
Hi Jean,

I went to the aquarium last winter (2002), but you were not there.
Any way, next time I will let you know in advance.
Cheers,
Alejandro

Jean said:
Hi Alejandro

If you're down in Dunedin, Look us up! Kerry & I are always keen to meet other ceph enthusiasts! That goes for anyone else of course :biggrin2: It's just that Alejandro is on the MAINLAND! Just call the lab or aquarium (it's in the book) or pm us if you're coming down!

Cheers

J
 
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the introduction, but at the moment I spent more time learning digital techonologies but still in touch with my squid notes and pcis.

The Magnapinna armature is very short, and the tentacles thick. I will post later the pic of the Magnapinna n.sp. from the Atlantic. But your specimen has the fins as the Idioteuthis/Magnoteuthis type. So I asumme that the tentacle of that specimen could be Idioteuthis type.

I reached the conclusion that Mastigoteuthidae as defined by Verrill is not a multispecies family. I am more sure now that there is a superfamily o higher taxa with lots of genera/Families with a single or two species each.

The lack of specimens of all stages can not help to support this theory. But, with your specimens could be possible to move in that direction.

Regarding the long armed squid in the TOL, I can not agree completely with the idea that belongs to the Magnapinna group. At the moment, except for my picture I do not know anything else.

So, the specimen similar to yours is from NIWA, which I examined two years ago. If I give you the station number you may guess by heart the position, don't you?

In relation to the last paragraph, I have a lot of information on M. hjorti and PICS of the tentacle, etc. so I wont relate them to M. hjorti.
So, the specimens I examined were very damaged, but I do not have more data on gladius or beak, but I have notes on the sucker dentition and their size, rows and shape.

So, have you had posted already some pics of the Echinoteuthis specimen you mentioned in a earlier mail? I would like to see them.

Cheers,
Alejandro
 
Alejandro, I'll post pics of the 'Echinoteuthis' from work today; I'm just guessing that this is what it is - it's like the only available name that I can think of that might apply. There's another thread online (Steve's freezer), within which there's a frozen mastigoteuthid that I cannot put a name on either (comparable in size to cordiformis). I can't defrost this immediately (no time), but will do so next week.

Interesting stuff!!
Cheers
Steve
 
Hi Steve,

Good luck with your defrosting of the giant mastigoteuthid. I will post the Magnapinna tomorrow (because I just found the file, it was lost). Hope to see soon the ?Echinoteuthis. It is exciting!!

Cheers,
Alejandro
 
Howdo Alejandro. Now this thing has me beat! It's a submature female (nice ovarian development). There's a single specimen only from NZ waters, ~ 1000m deep from the Chatham Rise (I recall - it could have been deeper), collected a decade-or-so ago.

I get the impression it had a secondary tail, but have yet to check out the gladius, or what happens to the gladius in the likes of Grimalditeuthis (I know that this isn't Grimalditeuthis; I've yet to find a good illustration of the gladius of this thing, to find out what happens up the pointy end, other than having a remarkably elongate rostrum-like conus).

The pics are not great, but they give you an overview of the beast. Interested to hear what you have to say.
Cheers
O

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