Bobtail Squid (Sepiolidae) are a family of cutesy, wutesy cephalopods found mostly in the tropics.
They’re not proper squid at all,.being more closely related to cuttlefish, and that might be why they’re so short and squat they’re also known as Dumpling Squid.
These are some of the smallest cephalopods, reaching some 1 to 8 cm long depending on species.
Most of them spend a lot of time on the seabed, since they’re not proficient swimmers. They spend the day buried in sand, even secreting a kind of glue to ensure a good disguise.
At night they go on the hunt, swimming about by flapping their wings and snatching up small crustaceans and the like.
A lot of Bobtail Squid have a light organ on their underside which is packed full of luminescent bacteria. The light organ can be opened and closed to emit just enough light to mask the Bobtail’s silhouette from the eyes of predators as it swims by the light of the moon.
This is just the same tactic used by many deep sea creatures and, in fact, there are some intrepid Bobtail Squid who live in the deep sea and some pelagic ones who never touch the sea floor at all.
…Images: Richard E. Young/Chris Frazee and Margaret McFall-Ngai/Mark Norman/Patrick Randall
