Marine Species Identification Portal : Ommastrephes bartramii

(Lesueur, 1821)

Description
Adult. Mantle cylindrical, length up to 86 cm. A wide, silvery longitudinal stripe extending along the ventral side of mantle almost from the anterior edge to the level of beginning fin; additional golden patches on head and arms. Fin is rhomboidal, slightly attenuate posteriorly. Fin length 40-45% and fin width 60% of mantle length; fin angle 45-50°. Rings of large suckers on club with four large teeth, one at each quadrant. Tips of arms are not attenuate; about 35 pairs of suckers on arms. Fast swimmer.
Young [O.bartramii-y ]. Ocular or visceral photophores absent in larvae; chromatophore pattern, when evident, as O.bartramii-y. Length of proboscis typically 75-100% of mantle length (<4 mm ML). Lateral (distal) suckers on tip of proboscis up to 200% of diameter of remaining six suckers. Proboscis begins to divide at 5 mm ML; tentacles are separate at 7 mm ML [Ommastrephidae-y]. [After Wormuth et al., in Sweeney et al., 1992].

Size
Mantle length up to 86 cm; total length up to 150 cm.

Depth range
Epi- to mesopelagic layers.

Distribution in the North Sea
Southern North Sea.

World distribution
Cosmopolitan, bi-subtropical species from the N Atlantic, N Pacific, S Atlantic, S Indian, S Pacific Oceans. There are three undescribed subspecies (see Nesis, 1987). One of them, the North Atlantic subspecies, is reported from the Great Newfoundland Bank and North Sea to Florida, the southern part of the Sargasso Sea, and Mauritania; also Mediterranean Sea? The other two occur in the S Atlantic, S Indian and S Pacific Oceans.

Ommastrephes bartramii