Marine Species Identification Portal : Galiteuthis armata

Joubin, 1898

Description
Adult. A spacious closed body cavity. Head is short and narrow. Eyes are very big. Mantle of adults is attenuated posteriorly into a long acuminate, needle-like tail. Fin is lanceolate, not so wide as long. Arms with two rows of suckers; arm sucker rings are smooth; no hooks on arms. Tentacles are long, with slightly widened clubs, bearing four rows of suckers with denticulate rings; club hooks with one tooth, with widened base and an aperture reduced to a small slit; hooks covered by a hood; marginal suckers on the central part of the clubs are reduced or absent.
Larva/juvenile. The funnel and mantle fusion cartilages have each a 1-3 pointed tubercle (if mantle length > 25 mm); gladial tail long; inner ocular photophore is stout and bar-shaped. [After Roper and Sweeney, in Sweeney et al., 1992].

Size
Mantle length (incl. tail) about 17 cm.

Depth range
Adults meso- to bathypelagic and benthic-bathyal; juveniles of < 30 mm mantle length are concentrated in the 0-200 m layer; larger juveniles and subadults tend to live deeper with development.

Distribution in the North Sea
Northern North Sea.

World distribution
Tropical and northern subtropical Atlantic, from the Bay of Biscay to the Gulf of Guinea and Straits of Florida, Mediterranean Sea.

Galiteuthis armata