Squid ID?

[Clem]

I'd love to know what kind of squid this is:

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL/gallery.html

At the very least, this photo answers the age-old question: How does a squid say "**** off?"

The above site also features some dramatic images of Cirroteuthis and Mastigoteuthis.

Clem

 

[WhiteKiboko]

i think i remember seeing a pic of a squid something like that and i think it might've been moroteuthis.... of course i could just be an idiot....

 

[Clem]

WK,

I thought it might be Moroteuthis as well. The threat-posture taken by the beastie makes it hard to determine what its "normal" proportions are. Are the arms always that long, the mantle always that bulbous, or have both been "inflated" by the squid to discourage the ROV?

I'm guessing that the ventral pair of arms is tucked up behind the squid's head and mantle, and the tentacles coiled within the arm corona; neither set is clearly visible in the photo.



Clem

 

[Steve O'Shea]

That really is a tough one. It is almost impossible to determine the shape of the fins, and rather difficult to count those arms (I can only see 6, and no tentacles). Bizarre! The skin looks quite smooth, the fins quite small, there seems to be no 'tail' at the back (where the fins are drawn out into an acute point), and there appear to be suckers (rather than hooks) along the arms (discounting a gonatid squid).

It seems like they have gone out of there way to post the most difficult picture to identify .... but my gut feeling is that it is not a Moroteuthis (although I haven't a clue what else it could be). I'd like to see more imagery before attaching a name to it.
Cheers
O

 

[Phil]

Well, for my $2 worth, I thought it was Moroteuthis too, though I thought the mantle looked a little swollen and stubby and the fins not arrow-shaped enough. The colour resembles all the footage I have seen of Moro and the exceptionally long arms look about right to me.

But, what do I know?

Jean, what do you think?

 

[Clem]

I did a little cutting and zooming on the image in an attempt to pick out helpful details, and numbered the visible arms (see attachment).

Subjected to the most rigorous scientific analysis (paper cut outs, bent and twisted), the paired fins appear to be broadly "heart" shaped, with only a minute point and very little taper.

There does appear to be some texture to the mantle, at least on the dorasl and lateral surfaces; the ventral portion of the mantle appears quite smooth, by contrast. (Smoothed-out by inflation, maybe?)

Also: I think I found a tentacle, but it's very small, almost vestigial looking.

 

[Jean]

Hi guys,

Fraid I'm with Steve on this one! I don't think it's Moroteuthis it doesn't seem robust enough and even with the mantle inflated I feel it would still be lumpy as the warts are formed from almost calcareous/cartilagenous plates and don't smooth out.

Admittedly I've only seenM. ingens and M. robusta but these are both big solid animals and the tentacles are correspondingly big (unless of course your guy lost one and was regenerating). In addition Moroteuthis has hooks on the tentacle clubs.

Any idea on the size of the beastie?? and what depth was it filmed in?? All M. ingens round this neck of the woods tend to be in deep water, hanging round 600- 1400m.

Sorry I can only add to the confusion

Cool pic though and what a bizarre posture!

J

reference:
Jackson, G.D., Shaw, A.G. P., & Lalas, C. 2000. Distrubution and biomass of two squid species off southern New Zealand: Nototodarus sloanii and Moroteuthis ingens Polar Biology vol 23(10) p. 699-705

 

[Clem]

Jean wrote:

Any idea on the size of the beastie?? and what depth was it filmed in?? All M. ingens round this neck of the woods tend to be in deep water, hanging round 600- 1400m.

According to the site at which the photo is presented, the animal was photographed at 417m. No idea how large (or small) it might be. Too bad the ROV didn't have a scale reference point in front of the camera lens.

Jean and Steve, I agree with you: compared to all the Moroteuthis images I've seen, this beastie just doesn't quite fit the profile. And then there's that weird posture. The Moro filmed by an ROV in the Monterey Canyon ("Amazing Suckers") was spotted near the bottom, but swimming horizontally; the arm/mantle size ratio on this mystery squid would suggest an animal whose "default" orientation was vertical.

To heck with it. I'm gonna write to the folks in Hawaii who took this picture. This means war.

Clem

 

[Steve O'Shea]

.... if they have a movie clip of this we could make an identification for sure (or at least additional stills images).

At that sort of depth (417 m) there HAVE to be specimens of it in collections (that's quite shallow by research standards), so it is very likely to be something that is well known. Because the animal lives closely associated with the sea floor (I know it is dangerous to make this statement/assumption on the basis of a single image/observation), it is very likely that specimens have been captured by fisheries bottom trawl or research epibenthic sled (and deposited in some museum somewhere).

If there were apparent photophores on the mantle and arms, slightly shorter arms (relative to the mantle length), and a better-developed (or more obvious) buccal membrane, I'd be quite happy referring it to Histioteuthis ..... (the shape of the mantle and fins are rather Histioteuthis -like)

...... but it doesn't!

Clem, pull some strings and get some additional images would you
Cheers
O

 

[Clem]

If there were apparent photophores on the mantle and arms, slightly shorter arms (relative to the mantle length), and a better-developed (or more obvious) buccal membrane, I'd be quite happy referring it to Histioteuthis ..... (the shape of the mantle and fins are rather Histioteuthis -like)

...... but it doesn't!

Clem, pull some strings and get some additional images would you
Cheers
O

Steve,


Last night, I watched the Histioteuthis video over at Cephbase.org, and had much the same thought re: the mantle and fins. Perhaps this is Histioteuthis with its arms at full extension ("**** off" mode); could photophores on the mantle be obscured by the bright wash of lights from the ROV?

You'd think that if the squid in question were well-known, it would be identified at soest.hawaii.edu. They labelled everything else in their gallery.

As for additional images and/or explanations: I'm working on it.

Clem

 

[Clem]

could photophores on the mantle be obscured by the bright wash of lights from the ROV?

After looking at the Histioteuthis images over at Tolweb, my answer to my own question is "probably not." Even in the glare of submersible lights, Histioteuthis still clearly shows its mantle & arm photophores. Different Histio species have photophores of varying prominence and reflectivity (sometimes because of sexual dimorphism), but they're still hard to miss.

An e-mailed plea for help is currently making its way through hawaii.edu. Should have an answer soon.

Grrr.

 

[Phil]

Just a thought, but if this were Histioteuthis (and I know no-one is saying that it is), then where are the tentacles? Shouldn't the mantle be covered in clearly visible light organs scattered all over the body and arms? I can't believe the lights from the ROV would drown out all of the photophores. (Sorry Clem, not copying you, I looked at some pictures of Histioteuthis and had a similar thought).

Make sure you get a decent reply from Hawaii, OK?

 

[Clem]

Five minutes later (literally)...

Ms. Rachel Shackelford has written to inform me that our mystery squid "has been identified as Histioteuthis hoylei."

Thanks to Rachel and to Ms. Tara Hicks, both at hawaii.edu, for chasing down this information.

For details, see Tolweb's Histioteuthis hoylei entry, here:

http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Histioteuthis_hoylei&contgroup=Histioteuthidae

Perhaps I'm just tired, but I still don't see any photophores on the squid that started all of this.


:sleeping:

Clem

 

[Clem]

Here's the latest from Rachel Shackelkford, Data Manager at SOEST/HURL:


Hi Adam,

Since you guys seem so interested in this animal, I thought I'd send you a couple more images. When I have time, I might see about putting a video clip up on the web too.

The ROV does have a couple lasers, 6 inches apart, used for scale. Unfortunately, in these images I can only see one of them. The other may be camouflaged in the squid. The recollection of one of the guys here who was onboard during this dive was that the squid was about 2-3 ft long.

The principal investigator for that particular dive was Frank Parrish of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The ROV pilots (camera operators) for that dive were Chris Taylor and Dan Greeson, both HURL employees at the time.

Aloha,
Rachel


Thank you, Rachel, for your generous assistance. Such public-mindedness is rare. Thanks again to Tara Hicks, for putting me in touch with the right data manager. The two "new" Histioteuthis hoylei images are attached below (visible photophores included). Rachel Shackelford has also updated the photo caption for the beastie at soest.hawaii.edu.

Clem

 

[Steve O'Shea]

....and thank you too Clem !!! Yes, I'm very happy referring the animal to Histioteuthis now (now that the photophores are apparent).

When we first started our work on live squid years ago I was often observed scratching my head - the live animals are very different from the preserved museum specimens and you had to learn an entirely new suite of characters/character states and mannerisms to identify them (without handling them). Nowadays I still scratch my head, but that might be the company I keep

It is very difficult identifying genera on the basis of single images, especially when important systematic characters cannot be discerned. Nice that this identification can be confirmed.
Cheers
O