Squidly Masters Of The Sea

I really enjoy getting squid stories from around the world in my daily google news alert. Keeps me from getting too obsessed with the Humboldt and market squid of California. Here's the latest: ICAR scientists detect deep sea squids in Arabian Sea.ICAR is the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, whose mandate has no doubt been expanded to include fisheries since it was named. And just who is "this largely unexploited deep sea squid which inhabits at depths ranging between 1,000 and 4,000 meters"? The article doesn't specify, but I would lay odds on Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis.

ICAR is the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, whose mandate has no doubt been expanded to include fisheries since it was named. And just who is "this largely unexploited deep sea squid which inhabits at depths ranging between 1,000 and 4,000 meters"? The article doesn't specify, but I would lay odds on Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis.

After all, Young and Vecchione say S. oualaniensis "is thought to be the most abundant large squid in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-Pacific region." And in the course of doing a genetic study on this squid, I read numerous articles in which the authors were practically salivating (in the most academic terms, of course) over the untapped potential of the fishery. In the words of the Deccan Herald,

Because of its abundance and dominance in a major part of the Arabian Sea, these squids are called the "Master of the Arabian Sea" . . . Considering the high demand and prices for oceanic squids in the international market, there is great scope for exploiting this resource on a massive scale.

Sigh. I wonder how many years of "exploiting this resource on a massive scale" it would take until the squid are no longer masters of the Arabian Sea.

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Danna Staaf

Cephalopods have been rocking my world since I was in grade school. I pursued them through a BA in marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by a PhD dissertation at Stanford on the reproduction and early life of Humboldt squid. After twenty-two years as a full-time student, I left academia to try my hand at freelance writing. I blog long, thoughtful essays (or equally long, incoherent rambling) at the Cephalopodiatrist. Here at Squid A Day I'm shooting for the opposite: daily sound bites of squid news. In the words of the Daily Illuminator, "Face it, however… Read more