''Amphorateuthis alveatus'' is a species of

bobtail squid Bobtail squid (order Sepiolida) are a group of cephalopods closely related to cuttlefish. Bobtail squid tend to have a rounder mantle (mollusc), mantle than cuttlefish and have no cuttlebone. They have eight suckered arms and two tentacles and ar ...

native to the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. It is characterised by unique modifications of the arms in males; mature males exhibit elongate suckers in numerous series on arm pairs II and IV.Young, R.E., M. Vecchione & C.F.E. Roper 2007. A new genus and three new species of decapodiform cephalopods (Mollusca: Cephalopoda). ''Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries'' 17(2–3): 353–365. ''A. alveatus'' is known from only four specimens. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

and

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype (biology), isotype ...

no. 1 were collected off western

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

at . Paratype no. 3 was caught at virtually the same locality in a 40 ft bottom trawl that fished to a depth of 100 m. Paratype no. 2 was taken at .

References

External links

Tree of Life web project: ''Amphorateuthis alveatus''
Bobtail squid Cephalopods described in 2007 Monotypic cephalopod genera {{sepiolida-stub