[Video]: Sepioteuthis juveniles; 2 days +

[Jean]

Jean, I've always wanted someone to look at tentacular club armature and diet. The three Sepioloidea species we get here (2 of them new species) have different tentacular club sucker armature. S. pacifica has the largest suckers (a few enlarged), and probably could take a 'colleague' squid (to eat), but those of the other two species are extremely small, and I wouldn't imagine that they were capable of restraining large prey (like a fellow squid).

It would be an exciting piece of work to look at diet and compare this to beak morphology, arm structure (relative lengths, sucker and/or hook morphology, protective membranes, photophores etc.) and tentacle structure, length, sucker and hook morphologies.

Jean, any chance any diver/vessel can get eggs of Sepioloidea right now is there?? I'd get a chiller unit shot down and pay for the same day courier to Auckland. I'd love to give these guys a go.

That would be a GREAT project! Our S. pacifica certainly cannibalised..we found beak bits in the gut contents!

I'll pm you re getting eggs!

J

 

[Steve O'Shea]

 

[Steve O'Shea]

 

[Steve O'Shea]

 

[tonmo]

no_fear1.jpg is an incredible photo!! They all are! Thanks for posting these...

 

[cthulhu77]

FASCINATING!

 

[Jean]

temporary citizen ouch!

 

[fluffysquid]

During my latest Squidlab shifts (NRCC), I managed a few semi-decent shots of our young Sepioteuthis lessoniana.

This took quite some time, as their tank has a black background and not entirely adequate lighting for photography. Another thing, I have learned that there is a fraction of a second between the beginning of the flash and the actual taking of the picture! Often I had an excellent shot, but the squid became spooked and I only managed to catch him well on his way to the other side of the tank! Amazing the reaction time!

So, here are some shots for your comparing enjoyment of S. lessoniana and S. australis!

 

[fluffysquid]

The first picture is only there because I liked the abundance of doooomed shrimp in the shot.

 

[um...]

The first picture is only there because I liked the abundance of doooomed shrimp in the shot.

 

[tonmo]

The first picture is only there because I liked the abundance of doooomed shrimp in the shot.

I just found my new desktop image

 

[Jean]

Ilike

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Fan-squidly-tastic! Yup, 'quite a bit' larger than ours; have been away for a couple of days so am about to go check whether they're alive/dead/have doubled in size or shrunk.....

How old do you think these are FS?
Ta muchly
Me

 

[Steve O'Shea]

It's been so long since I posted on this thread. The squid juveniles are now pretty big, but the camera is awol so I can't provide pics. They hatched on/around 5 December 2003, so if anyone wants to do the arithmetic they can determine how old they are (>100 days is all I can do right now), and growing (and eating) furiously.

... to make matters worse .... an additional 2 clusters of eggs collected a week-or-so ago started to hatch today. The contrast between 1-day old and 100+-day old squid is amazing! Though I'm sitting here scratching my head thinking 'Oh no, here we go again'.

In a couple of nights (Thursday night, 7pm NZT) we're actually releasing ~ 50 of the 100+ day squid as I cannot procure enough food for them without spending 10 hours a day, and this is time that would better be spent on some other project (like catching and rearing other squid species). We've just been so successful with keeping this lot alive, basically zero mortality (other than the now rare cannibalism strike, or an animal that leaps from the top of the tank). I'll make sure we get pics of the release (will actually have a telly crew with us) - it makes a change, seeding the environment with squid, to plucking them from it with my little nets. About time I put some back.

I should add that we're working on squidcam as we speak/type, so very soon you'll be able to track the antics of the little guys yourselves. An update on this shortly.
O

 

[Nancy]

Wonderful news! Glad you're having such success. Now that I've tried my hand at raising octo babies, I can appreciate even more what an achievement this is.

Nancy