Squid

A Photographic experience

Squid

Scientific classification: Squid belong to the order Teuthoidea of the class Cephalopoda.

The graceful Squid is like the Octopus an expert in camouflage. It get out to feed at night using a well developed eye sight highlighted by its enormous eye.

The squid has a large head and a relatively large brain. Its naked body, stiffened by an interior cartilaginous skeleton, is spherical or cigar-shaped, with two lateral fins. Around the mouth are eight sucker-bearing arms and two contractile tentacles with widened tips; on the latter are four rows of suction cups encircled by rings of chitinous (horny) hooks. The contractile tentacles, longer than the rest, are used to seize the prey and pass it to the shorter arms, which hold it firmly as it is torn by strong jaws shaped like a parrot’s beak. Squid can swim faster than any other invertebrate by rapidly expelling water from the mantle cavity through the funnel, which can be turned in order to direct movement. Many deep-sea squid are bioluminescent. They shoot out a cloud of dark ink when pursued.

In the male squid, one smaller arm is modified for the purpose of planting a packet of sperm (a spermatophore) in the female’s oviduct. In some squid the sperm can also be deposited in a vesicle below the female’s mouth; the spermatophore, already opened by the male, releases the sperm as the eggs are produced. The females fasten their eggs to seaweed or to the ocean bottom by a viscous filament. The eggs of deep-water squid are free-floating.

Squid species vary greatly in size. The giant squid, at least 18m long, is the largest aquatic invertebrate. It lives at depths of 300 to 600m, where it is the prey of sperm whales.

Home - Topside Photo - Underwater Photo - Biography