''Doryteuthis gahi'', also known as Loligo, the Patagonian longfin squid and Patagonian squid (Spanish: ''calamar patagónico'' or just ''calamar''), is a small-sized

squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ...

belonging to the family

Loliginidae Loliginidae, commonly known as pencil squids, is an aquatic family of squid classified in the order Myopsida. Taxonomy The family Loliginidae was formerly classified in the order Teuthida. Taxonomic list The classification below (includi ...

. It occurs in coastal waters in the southeastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

and the southwestern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

where it is caught and eaten for food.

Description

The Patagonian squid is a small species and has a mantle length of and a weight of between . The mantle is somewhat elongated and on either side at the posterior end are rhomboidal

fins A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foil (fluid mechanics), foils that produce lift (force), lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while travelin ...

, rather less than half the length of the mantle. At the anterior end are four pairs of arms and a pair of tentacles. The third and fourth pairs of arms are longer than the others, and in males, the left fourth arm is heterodactylised near its tip. The tentacles are long and slender, each terminated by a club-shaped "manus" with small, narrow suckers at the edge and slightly larger ones at the centre.

Distribution

This squid occurs in the southeastern Pacific Ocean and the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. In the Pacific, its range extends along the coast from southern Peru to southern Chile, and in the Atlantic, from the San Matías Gulf in Argentina southwards to

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

, including the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

around the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

. It is an open-water species with a depth range from the surface down to about .

Biology

Little is known of the biology of this species, but like all squid, it is a

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

. Prey items are caught by the tentacles, grasped and moved to the mouth with the help of the arms, and then chewed by the horny beak. In Chile, spawning grounds have been identified at depths of between . Fragile egg masses some long containing about 15 embryos have been found among stems of the kelp '' Lessonia trabeculata'', particularly in places where the algae have been heavily defoliated, suggesting that a semi-protected environment with adequate water movement is desirable. It is often a prey of Otaria flavescens, Alectis ciliaris and other predators.

Uses

In the Pacific Ocean, this species is mostly caught as

bycatch Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...

during trawls directed at other species. In the Atlantic Ocean there is a dedicated fishery in the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas where it is an important target species taken from over the

Patagonian Shelf The Patagonian Shelf — sometimes referred to as Argentine Shelf — is part of the South American continental shelf belonging to the Argentine Sea on the Atlantic seaboard, south of about 35°S. It adjoins the coasts of Argentina and Urugu ...

. The total reported world catch in 1999 was , with the largest catch being from the Falkland Islands ().

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q13596602 Doryteuthis Molluscs of the Atlantic Ocean Molluscs of the Pacific Ocean Cephalopods described in 1835 Taxa named by Alcide d'Orbigny