The squid divers actually meet: 40 cm (16 in) of translucent body with broad oval fins running the full length of the mantle, hanging in mid-water in small groups near the reef, usually at the safety stop. The fins make it look like a cuttlefish, but it swims like a squid and it watches you the whole time.
It grows faster than almost any animal in the sea. A hatchling can reach 600 g (1.3 lb) in four months, and the entire life is over in under a year: hatch, grow at a rate that consumes a third of its body weight in food per day, breed once, die. That pace is why squid populations recover quickly from fishing while shark populations do not, and it is one of the clearest examples of two completely different bets on the same ocean.
Color is conversation. Chromatophores under direct nervous control let the animal run patterns down its body in fractions of a second, and courting males hold one display toward a female and another toward a rival at the same time. Groups keep a spacing that looks like schooling but is closer to a negotiation.
Eggs are laid in white finger-like capsules attached to rock, coral or a wreck, in clusters that several females contribute to. The hatchlings are miniature adults and hunt within a day.
- broad oval fins running the entire length of the mantle
- translucent body that flushes with color in fractions of a second
- hangs in mid-water in small groups, often at the safety stop
- length to 40 cm
Why it's threatened
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
