Bobtail squid

Bobtail squid
Sepiola atlantica
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Superorder: Decapodiformes
Order: Sepiolida
Fioroni, 1981
Families

Idiosepiidae
Sepiolidae

Bobtail squid (order Sepiolida)[1] are a group of cephalopods closely related to cuttlefish. Bobtail squid tend to have a rounder mantle than cuttlefish and have no cuttlebone. They have eight suckered arms and two tentacles and are generally quite small (typical male mantle length being between 1 and 8 cm (0.39 and 3.15 in)).[2]

Sepiolids live in shallow coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean and some parts of the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean as well as in shallow waters on the west coast of the Cape Peninsula off South Africa. Like cuttlefish, they can swim by either using the fins on their mantle or by jet propulsion. They are also known as "dumpling squid" (owing to their rounded mantle) or "stubby squid".

  1. ^ Gustavo Sanchez; Jeffrey Jolly; Amanda Reid; Chikatoshi Sugimoto; Chika Azama; Ferdinand Marlétaz; Oleg Simakov; Daniel S. Rokhsar (2019-12-11). "New bobtail squid (Sepiolidae: Sepiolinae) from the Ryukyu islands revealed by molecular and morphological analysis". Communications Biology. 2 (465): 465. doi:10.1038/s42003-019-0661-6. PMC 6906322. PMID 31840110.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference McFall-Ngai was invoked but never defined (see the help page).