Mystery squid 1

Re: hope this would solve my problem

Gayla said:
I'm going crazy with some squid id's in Hawaii ... they're from tuna guts.
I've been placing a lot of squids in Histioteuthis based on distinctive photophores - oval with a light spot on one side. Then I get a small batch that have hooks ... uh oh. :bonk: The beak has more of a ridge (like Enoploteuthid) than a fin (like Histioteuthis), but they're small so I could be wrong. So body of Histioteuthis and arms and beak of Enoploteuthis? I never found a good picture of photophores of E.higginsi or E.reticulata so I just figured I got a ton of my Histioteuthis id's wrong and had to go dig them all up ... unless you've just found a Histioteuthis with hooks (oh please, oh please)!!

Hi Gayla. I can promise you that no species of Histioteuthis (to my knowledge) has hooks on any part of the arms or tentacles. You are actually in one of the luckiest places on Earth as you have the recently retired Prof. Richard (Dick) Young right there - a cephalopod guru.

Is there any way that you could post some images online - we can get to the bottom of this in no time. I'm pretty sure I have a few paralarval Histioteuthis pics around that I can post (I just have to find them), and a few others of other squid that you might be confusing them with.

Are the hooks found on the arms in 2 rows, and on the tentacle clubs (Enoploteuthidae)

Are the arms beset with 2 rows of suckers, and at ML's > 12 mm the tentacles armed with 2 rows of hooks (the medial rows), with the marginal rows being simple suckers (Onychoteuthidae).

Are there 4 rows of suckers/hooks on the arms - as in the medial 2 rows of hooks on arms 1-3 with another row of suckers either side these hooks (Gonatidae)

If the mantle is studded with small photophores then you most likely have Histioteuthis spp. These paralarvae are very distinctive!

But there are many different kinds of squid, as you very well know.

Have you a copy of:
Sweeney, M.J.; Roper, C.F.E.; Mangold, K.M.; Clarke, M.R.; Boletzky, S.v. (eds) 1992. "Larval" and juvenile cephalopods: a manual for their identification. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 513: 282pp.

If not then it is essential that you get a copy.

If you post some images online I'm sure we can help out.
Kindest
Steve
 
Thanks for the info ...
I will certainly look up the reference. Hopefully I can get some pictures for you soon. I did say small, but I didn't mean that small - they aren't paralarvae. They are about 2-3 cm. long. The arms are quite damaged in most of my specimens, so suckers and hooks are often lost. I'll take a closer look tomorrow and see if I can figure out the configuration. Seems like the tentacles digest off first. I rarely get a club with anything worthwhile on it.
Thanks for your time! You are quite generous with it on these boards ... you must not sleep :madsci:
Not me ... time to :sleeping:

Gayla
 
Hi Gayla. Playing squid detective is going to be fun! Partially digested squid (stomach contents) are fun to identify, because you have to look for new characters/states to identify them (not the usual line up of characters/states that you'll find in cephalopod descriptions). At 2-3cm (whether total or mantle length) you'll have no problems at all identifying your creatures; we might have to look at characters of the beak and gladius to do so, and the actual shape of the hooks, and/or sucker-ring dentition, if either have survived the digestive process (as both are rather variable characters in squid), but identifications at least to genus will be easy. In fact, one of the first things Tintenfish and I will do when she is back online (a day away) is get some comparative hook illustrations online. They differ demonstrably between different families, and in many instances genera within families, so that you will be able to identify your critters easily.
Cheers
Steve
 
Hmmmmm. Steve just checked out your website link Gayla. What has stomach contents of tuna got to do with Octopus cyanea? I notice also that you have an interest in squid beaks!! Now have I got a research topic for you!!

Is the research that you are doing part of a Masters or PhD programme, or research leading up to either?
Cheers
Me
 
I'm working on O. cyanea for my MS thesis work, but it's not paying my salary. There's a tuna diet study going on in our lab, and I'm hired on to manage the database and id the ceph contents. Luckily someone else is doing all those nasty cruchy animals - the fish and shrimpy stuff. I haven't done squid id's before, so it's been a great experience so far, and since they only want them to family it hasn't been as overwhelming as it could be.
I have most of the Sweeney et al. here but haven't used it as much as the FAO catalogue (I had to print it out from the pdf on the web). I definitely need to review my id's with Sweeney.
I don't think I'll be able to get pictures of the specimens I was asking about soon since I'm trying to get field work with my cyanea started tomorrow. But, with fresher eyes today I found a specimen in the pile with a club intact - and full of hooks. I still couldn't tell if there were two rows of hooks on the arms since they were beaten up and flattened out, but there were definitely all hooks and no suckers. I also found a Histioteuthis so I could compare the photophores of the two. Now I see the big difference. Oh well ... just learning here :roll: .
I guess I was just at a roadblock last night when I read about this Mystery squid! I should have known I just needed some sleep.
Thanks for going to the website. Hopefully I'll have some of the work I've done posted on there in the next month or so. I'm a lone cepher surrounded by sharks!

Thanks again for your feedback and time!

Gayla
 
..... and 'Mystery squid 1' was .....

Should I keep you in suspense any longer .... it's almost public domain. You've got a week-or-so left to guess.
 
. :shock: ... why hello there um........ Interesting handle you have (wish I'd thought of it first .... I'll have to settle for duh....... :wink: )

Bingo, spot on, Lepidoteuthis grimaldii. As I sat there this morning, as I do on occasion, I noted variable spelling of grimaldii in a paper due out in a few weeks (we use grimaldi and grimaldii interchangeably :cry: ) These things happen.

How'd you guess?
 
Cool.

I spent (almost) all morning looking through the 'Decapodiformes' group at the Tree of Life (Tree of Life Web Project if anyone needs to know). Teuthology is one of the many, many things that are much more interesting than my job. :sleeping: The info in the Lepidoteuthidae section described L. grimaldi(i) as a large-ish squid with no hooks that's been known for a while, although rather poorly. It fit with your clues, so I guessed. I did a search at Google and got this hit:

http://www.tonmo.com/oshea.php

L. Grimaldi and JMBA appear together near the bottom of the select bibliography, right before that thing about 'Unique saber-like hooks of a large deep-sea squid'. I was thus convinced.

By the way, it is very cool sort of talking to you. :notworth: I've been a fan since 1999 or so, after reading Ellis' book on Architeuthis.

Neil
 
Right, sorry... series of odd coincidences... :oshea: joked about taking a pseudonym... but we certainly are nowhere near the Great White North.

Nice work on Lepidoteuthis by the way.

:roll:
 
Although being some artefact of :oshea: 's fractured psyche (or some kind of joke) would be a vast improvement.

Corporate semi-zombiehood has yet to display an upside.

Neil
 

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