Description
Idioteuthis cordiformis is a large, deep water species growing up to one hundred centimetres long. Only a few specimens have been carefully observed and different authorities have described its colour as being pale flesh-pink, yellowish with small reddish-brown chromatophores or having thickly crowded deep brownish chromatophores. It is probably transparent in life with the tissues becoming opaque after death. Like all squids it has five pairs of appendages. Arms 1, 2, 3 and 5 bear suckers with arm 3 being considerably larger than arm 1. Arm 4 is an elongated tentacle which is retractable. It is much longer than the arms and the distal end has a club with many small suckers which decrease in size towards the tip. The club is no wider than the rest of the tentacle.
The cuticle is tough and covered with small, conical tubercules on round plaques. The dark red pigment is found in densely packed chromatophores but there are no photophores. The head is separated from the mantle by a collar and below the head is the opening of the funnel which is ear-shaped. The eyes are large and highly developed, with relatively large lobes of the brain dedicated to their control. The posterior end of the mantle has a semicircular fin on either side which extends three quarters of the way along the mantle.
Read more about this topic: Idioteuthis Cordiformis
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)