This one was spotted in the Gulf of Mexico under 7,800 feet of water. They are placed in the genus Magnapinna and family Magnapinnidae. If one watches carefully, the bigfin reef squid hang out in the shadows and wait for small fishes to come in on the light.
BIGFIN REEF SQUID COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION Bigfin Reef squid are an important commercial species and are caught by netting, trapping and jigging at night while using lights as an attractant.
This action can be seen in the video below. The first record of this family comes from a specimen (During the 1980s, two additional immature specimens were found in the Atlantic (The first visual record of the long-arm squid was in September 1988. Clearly they are able to exploit the light to feed.A similar thing happens when diving at night and if there are small fishes around attracted by the lights they will shoot in and grab their prey and shoot off again. The arms and tentacles of the squid are both extremely long, and believed to be between 4 to 8 m (13 to 26 ft) long. It is usually very difficult to get close to them during the day.At night they seem to split up and I have never seen them in large shoals at night.
They are usually sold in restaurants as Calamari and when cooked properly make delicious eating.As a rule they are usually only kept in large public aquaria for research purposes and several generations have now been captive bred by researchers.
Sometimes groups of 4 to 6 may be seen together.
The wonderful Monterey Bay Aquarium has put together an incredibly relaxing video of bigfin reef squid, aka glitter squid, calmly floating in the bright blue water of the “Tentacles Exhibit”.This zen scene is further enhanced by an instrumental LoFi hip hop soundtrack. As can be seen in the image above, the end of the tentacles contain large numbers of suckers which grab onto the prey. In addition to the arms they have two longer tentacles which are used for grabbing prey.
Often the shoal will move in on a group of divers and some of the smaller individuals will drop to the bottom and come in within ten to eight meters to inspect the divers, darkening their coloration to camouflage themselves. They seem to have an inherent curiosity to see what the divers are. They dart in and grab the fish and shoot out into the shadows again , repeatedly darting in to feed. The video below was shot with the VL30000.
These appendages are held perpendicular to the body, creating "elbows". In many ways the bigfin reef squid looks like a cuttlefish due to its large fins and its habit of sculling near reef structures.
They are preyed upon by gamefish such as Tuna as well as the larger reef predators and Dolphin.They dart rapidly at their prey and seize it with their tentacles. In May 2001, approximately ten minutes of crisp footage of a long-armed squid were acquired by On 11 November 2007, a new video of a long-arm squid was filmed off Perdido, a drilling site owned by The specimens in the videos looked very distinct from all previously known squids. Bigfin squids are a group of rarely seen cephalopods with a distinctive morphology. The shoals can number several hundred squid and are made up of individuals of varying sizes. The arms are then used to hold the prey and the sharp beak bites off small pieces off the prey. Uniquely among Little is known about the feeding behavior of these squid. Unlike our local market and Humboldt squid, the bigfin reef squid spends most of its time near coastal rocks and reefs. They lack photophores and are therefore technically not bioluminescent.In Tanzanian waters during the day one often sees large shoals of bigfin reef squid, usually in mid water.
Mating usually occurs before egg laying.The eggs laid in gelatinous white strands of 3 to 8 eggs and are attached to the substrate. They hatch after three weeks and are fully formed.
The life span of the bigfin reef squid is relatively short, with a maximum of around 300 days in captivity.Bigfin Reef squid are an important commercial species and are caught by netting, trapping and jigging at night while using lights as an attractant. How the squid feeds is unknown. The prey is then pulled into the mouth area by retracting the tentacles. The arms contain suckers that decrease in size as the arms taper. Their colors vary greatly and are usually not uniform.Even when in translucent white mode, which can be seen in the images below, there are green shades and light brownish dots. Any attempt to approach them and the entire shoal shoots off. The crew of the These videos did not receive any media attention; most were brief and fairly blurry. They have a sharp beak along with toothed tentacles near the mouth.The upper surfaces are covered with large chromatophores which give them the ability to change color. Scientists have speculated that bigfin squid feed by dragging their arms and tentacles along the seafloor, and grabbing edible organisms from the floor. Meet the bigfin squid, an elusive and frankly quite terrifying cephalopod.