Berry's Bobtail

Overview

Berry's bobtail, also called the hummingbird bobtail squid, is a small, stocky cephalopod in the family Sepiolidae. It is active at night and spends the day buried in sand. Its IUCN status is Data Deficient.

Distribution & habitat

This squid lives in the tropical Indo-Pacific. Its range runs from Indonesia and the Philippines north to Japan and China. It may also reach the Andaman Islands, Sri Lanka and western India. It lives on the bottom and prefers sandy or fine sediments, including seagrass areas, where it can bury itself to rest or escape danger.

Appearance

The body is compact and rounded, with eight arms, two feeding tentacles and a pair of small fins on the mantle. The body is translucent and covered in tiny dark chromatophores (pigment cells). Together these give it a blend of dark and electric-blue tones. Males are smaller than females.

Biology & behavior

By day it stays buried, and at night it comes out to hunt and mate. It has a light organ that houses glowing symbiotic bacteria (Vibrio fischeri). The light matches moonlight from above, so the squid casts no dark silhouette for predators below. Wild lifespan is short, about six months.

Feeding

It eats mainly small bottom-dwelling crustaceans.

Reproduction

Spawning is seasonal. In Japan it runs from late April to July. Females lay clutches of a few hundred eggs, and the young settle on the bottom after hatching.