The vicariant role of Caribbean formation in driving speciation in American loliginid squids: the case of Doryteuthis pealeii (Lesueur 1821)

Molecular identification of whole squids and calamari at fairs and markets in regions of Latin America

“…The squid fauna proposed for these regions is very similar to that reported for some regions of the North Coast of Brazil (Jereb and Roper, 2010). The presence of D. pleii , L. brevis and D. pealeii in these locations are in accordance with what has been proposed by recent molecular reviews with specimens from the North Coast of Brazil (Sales et al 2011; 2013; 2014; 2017; 2024a; Costa et al 2021). Two species of Doryteuthis identified in the present study are of high commercial importance in Brazil and in North America (Herke and Foltz 2002; Jereb and Roper 2010; Postuma and Gasalla 2015), and, it is important to clarify that the lineage of D. pleii commercialized in Brazil corresponds to the actual species (Sales et al 2017), while the lineage exploited in North America corresponds to a not yet described species.…”

“…pealeii, the pattern is the opposite, with the lineage that occurs in Brazil being a new undescribed species (Sales et al 2024a). According to our results, most of the samples were in agreement with the fauna found on the Brazilian coast (Haimovici et al 2009),…”

“…The same specific delimitation is valid for L. brevis (Sales et al 2014) and, although this is not a commercially important species (Good et al 2023), on the North coast of Brazil it is often consumed by fishers (Sales et al 2024b). For D. pealeii , the pattern is the opposite, with the lineage that occurs in Brazil being a new undescribed species (Sales et al 2024a). According to our results, most of the samples were in agreement with the fauna found on the Brazilian coast (Haimovici et al 2009), indicating that the species that were being sold at fairs come from artisanal fishing, which contributes to the lack of supervision by the responsible governmental authorities, making it difficult to verify frauds.…”

“…A portion of inappropriate labeling occurs unintentionally, largely due to the morphological characters used to identify species that can be easily mistaken, or simply when using vernacular names that are common to more than one species. To a certain extent, mislabeling may be the result of difficulties in identifying species, which occurs mainly in groups with few informative morphological characters and with a long history of cryptic species, such as in the Loliginidae species (Sales et al 2013; Cheng et al 2014; Costa et al 2021, Sales et al 2024a) and Ommastrephidae (Fernández-Álvarez et al 2020). Confusion can also arise due to different species having the same vernacular name, or different common names in different regions for the same species (Brito et al 2015).…”