First record of an adult Taningia danae (Cefalopoda: Octopoteuthidae) in the Canary Islands (Central-east Atlantic)

• Main Authors: Escánez, Alejandro, Perales-Raya, Catalina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Pesquerías; Hooked squid; Centro Oceanográfico de Canarias; Taningia danae; Canary Islands; Atlantic Ocean; Fishing Ground; Joubin; New Zealand; Pacific; Roper; DML; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10508/11242; http://hdl.handle.net/10261/324687

The deep-sea hooked squid, Taningia danae Joubin, 1931 (Octopoteuthidae) is one of the largest oceanic squids, reaching dorsal mantle lengths (DML) of 1700 mm (Nesis 1982; 1987), and has been reported to weigh up to at least 161.4 kg (Roper & Vecchione 1993). This species is characterised by a conical mantle with large triangular fins that occupy almost the entire mantle length and its width exceeds up to 130% of the DML. This species has eight short robust arms, with two series of hooks on each arm, and arm pair II with two large oval terminal photophores, which are covered by black eyelidlike skin folds that allow for the controlled flashing of each photophore. Another pair of photophores is embedded on each side of the ink sac. Tentacles are robust on paralarvae but are lost at a dorsal mantle length of 40 to 45 mm (Jereb & Roper 2010). This species has a cosmopolitan distribution, being more abundant in tropical and temperate waters, but has also been observed in boreal areas, e.g. 57º N in the NE Atlantic. Paralarval and juvenile individuals of T. danae have been caught within Scottish waters (Santos et al. 2001), the North Atlantic Ocean (Clarke & Lu 1974; Okutani 1974; Lu & Clarke 1975), and off Bermuda, Cape Verde and the Madeira Islands (Roper & Vecchione 1993). In the Pacific Ocean the species has been reported from the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand (Roper & Vecchione 1993) and in the Mediterranean Sea from Algerian waters (Quetglas et al. 2006). Santos et al. (2001) reported an incomplete adult female caught at 400 m depth by a commercial trawler in Galician waters. Posteriorly, González et al. (2003) recorded three specimens (two females and a mature male), in the Carrandi fishing ground (Cantabrian sea). A further large specimen (1600 mm ML) was captured at Georges Bank (USA) in the NW Atlantic (Roper & Vecchione 1993). Three living specimens have been video-recorded: two in the Ogasawara Islands’ waters (Japan), in the western North Pacific at 240 and 900 m depth ...