''Xipholeptos notoides'', commonly known as the southern pygmy squid, is the sole species in the

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, ...

genus ''Xipholeptos''.Berry, S. S. (1921). A review of the cephalopod genera ''Sepioloidea'', ''Sepiadarium'', and ''Idiosepius''. ''Records of the South Australian Museum'', 1(4), 347–364. The species was originally classified as ''Idiosepius notoides''. The southern pygmy squid is native to the southwestern

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

, off southern and eastern Australia. It inhabits shallow, inshore waters.Reid, A. 2005. Family Idiosepiidae. ''In:'' P. Jereb & C.F.E. Roper, eds. ''Cephalopods of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of species known to date. Volume 1. Chambered nautiluses and sepioids (Nautilidae, Sepiidae, Sepiolidae, Sepiadariidae, Idiosepiidae and Spirulidae)''. FAO Species Catalogue for Fishery Purposes. No. 4, Vol. 1. Rome, FAO. pp. 208–210. It has been recorded off the coasts of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

and Victoria. Females grow to 25 mm in

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

length, while males are not known to exceed 15.8 mm in mantle length. This species occurs in beds of

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families ( Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the ...

in bays and inlets where it feeds during the night on small crustaceans such as shrimp. In the daytime they remain hidden within the seagrass, adhering to the leaves of the seagrass using a glue excreted by a gland on the dorsal surface of the body. The females attach the eggs onto seagrass blades, most typically species of the genera '' Heterozostera'' and ''

Zostera ''Zostera'' is a small genus of widely distributed seagrasses, commonly called marine eelgrass, or simply seagrass or eelgrass, and also known as seaweed by some fishermen and recreational boaters including yachtsmen. The genus ''Zostera'' con ...

''. There is thought to be a

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

stage during this species' development. The

type-specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...

was collected off Goolwa,

, Australia, and is deposited at the

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cu ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

.Current Classification of Recent Cephalopoda
/ref>

References

External links

GenBank Links for Genetic Information on ''Idiosepius notoides''
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q51671838, from2=Q51671740, from3=Q2100096 Cephalopod genera Monotypic mollusc genera Molluscs described in 1921 Taxa named by Amanda Reid (malacologist)

References

Further reading

External links