A specimen was caught in a filter placed in one of the deep-sea pipelines of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) off the Hawaiian Islands in the summer of 2007. On June 12, 2007, the creature was identified as an unnamed species of squid.[3][4][5][6] The ruby-red creature was about a foot long, with white suction cups on its arms. The animal died three days after it was brought to the surface.
The specimen was originally dubbed "Octosquid" by NELHA operations manager Jan War, a reference to the fact that the specimen had only eight arms, like an octopus, rather than the eight arms and two tentacles of most squid. An examination of the specimen conducted by Richard Young of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, however, concluded that it was an unnamed species of the genus Mastigoteuthis. The specimen was likely missing its tentacles due to them being torn off during capture.[3]
It was formally described in 2008 as Mastigoteuthis microlucens.[2][7]
References
^Bieler R, Bouchet P, Gofas S, Marshall B, Rosenberg G, La Perna R, Neubauer TA, Sartori AF, Schneider S, Vos C, ter Poorten JJ, Taylor J, Dijkstra H, Finn J, Bank R, Neubert E, Moretzsohn F, Faber M, Houart R, Picton B, Garcia-Alvarez O (eds.). "Magnoteuthis microlucens (Young, Lindgren & Vecchione, 2008)". MolluscaBase. World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
^ abYoung, R. E.; Vecchione, M.; Lindgren, A. "Magnoteuthis microlucens". tolweb.org. Tree of Life web project. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
^Young, R. E.; Lindgren, A.; Vecchione, M. (August 2008). "Mastigoteuthis microlucens, a new species of the squid family Mastigoteuthidae (Mollusca: Cephalopoda)". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 121 (2): 276–282. doi:10.2988/07-40.1. S2CID86265294.
