Observations of wild hunting behaviour and bioluminescence of a large deep-sea, eight-armed squid, Taningia danae

Abstract

Our newly developed underwater high definition video camera system took the first live images of adults of the mesopelagic large squid, Taningia danae, between 240 and 940 m deep off Ogasawara Islands, western North Pacific. The resulting footage includes attacking and bioluminescence behaviours, and reveals that T. danae is far from the sluggish neutrally buoyant deep-sea squid previously suspected. It can actively swim both forward and backward freely by flapping its large muscular triangular fins and changes direction quickly through bending its flexible body. It can attain speeds of 2-2.5 ms(-1) (7.2-9 km h(-1)) when attacking bait rigs. They emitted short bright light flashes from their large arm-tip photophores before final assault, which might act as a blinding flash for prey as well as a means of measuring target distance in a dark deep-sea environment. They also emitted long and short glows separated by intervals while wandering around the double torch lights attached to the bait rig, suggestive of potential courtship behaviours during mating.

Active hunting by deep-diving sperm whales: 3D dive profiles and maneuvers during bursts of speed

“…The maximum swim speeds of flying squids and T. danae were estimated from video data at 5.3 m s −1 (T. Kubo dera unpubl. data) and 2.5 m s −1 (Kubodera et al 2007), respectively. As pursuit speeds of predators are predicted to be a function of prey escape speeds (Wilson et al 2002), the range of maximum speeds of bursts should correspond to the escape speeds of such actively swimming, large and/or muscular squids.…”

“…These squids were observed to be at approximately the diving depths of the whales in our field study, at the same time of year and in the same area. For example, an underwater camera recor ded flying squids Ommastrephes bartrami (Lesueur) with muscular mantles between 400 and 800 m (Kubodera & Mori 2003), giant squids at 900 m, and Taningia danae from 240 to 940 m (Kubodera & Mori 2005, Kubodera et al 2007). The maximum swim speeds of flying squids and T. danae were estimated from video data at 5.3 m s −1 (T. Kubo dera unpubl.…”

Observation of a Gelatinous Octopod, Haliphron atlanticus, along the Southern West Mariana Ridge: A Unique Cephalopod of Continental Slope and Mesopelagic Communities

“…The West Mariana Ridge has a variety of seamounts along the ridge, with some reaching <200 m and a few being near the surface (Figure 1(c)), and this pattern extends to the north along the ridge [52]. Body parts of H. atlanticus have been observed farther north along these ridge systems around the Ogasawara Islands south of Japan (T. Wu personal communication) where sperm whales actively feed [61,62] on species such as giant squid, Architeuthis, and possibly eight-armed squid, Taningia danae, which have been observed there [63,64]. Haliphron atlanticus has also been reported from Sagami Bay of eastern Japan [65] (as cited by [26]).…”

Chromogenic behaviors of the Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas) studied in situ with an animal-borne video package

“…Acoustic sampling suggests that D. gigas hunts cooperatively at night (Benoit-Bird and Gilly, 2012), thus providing non-invasive information on social structure and schooling, but there are many nuances of behavior that acoustic methods cannot resolve. Observations made with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) or manned submersibles provide unique in situ observations at mesopelagic depths (Hunt and Seibel, 2000;Kubodera et al, 2007;Vechionne et al, 2002), but bright illumination and vehiclegenerated noise can skew behaviors of squid in unknown ways.…”