Family MASTIGOTEUTHIDAE Verrill, 1881

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• MASTIGOTEUTHIDAE Verrill, A.E. 1881. The cephalopods of the north-eastern coast of America, Part II. The smaller cephalopods, including the "squids" and the octopi, with other allied forms. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 5: 259-446.

  Type genus:

   Mastigoteuthis Verrill, 1881.

Introduction

Members of the family Mastigoteuthidae Verrill, 1881 are medium to large sized squid (maximum mantle length (ML) 50–100 cm) with gelatinous body consistency. Four of six known genera are represented in Australian waters, each represented by a single species. Due to their deep water habitat, mastigoteuthids are easily damaged during trawling operations, and hence many species are only poorly delineated.

Mastigoteuthis agassizi, the type species of the genus Mastigoteuthis, was described from the western North Atlantic by Verrill (1881). Allan (1945) recorded the first Mastigoteuthis species from Australian waters. Four nominal species were listed by Lu & Phillips (1985).

The body of Mastigoteuthis is often pink or brick red in colour. Some species have minute dermal tubercles covering the body surface. Roper & Lu (1990) described these structures in Mastigoteuthis cordiformis and M. hjorti and identified the tissue as being elastic cartilage or fibro-cartilage. The function of these tubercles is suggested to be aid in drag reduction, at least in M. cordiformis.

The tissues of Mastigoteuthis are highly vacuolated (Dilly et al. 1977); vacuoles are found in the arms, at the front of the head, in the cartilage, the mantle and the fins; the tentacles, however, have a dense musculature. The vacuolated tissues, containing ammonium rich fluid, provide buoyancy for the animal (Clarke et al. 1979). Based on the distribution of vacuolated tissues, Dilly et al. (1977) suggested that mastigoteuthids, when not swimming, lie vertically in the sea with arms held upwards, the denser tentacles hanging downwards.

No comprehensive information on mastigoteuthids is available. Their food is probably mainly crustaceans. Verrill (1882) and Rancurel (1971) found crustacean remains in the stomach contents of Mastigoteuthis agassizii and M. grimaldii. The tentacles, however, have a dense musculature, although frequently species of Mastigoteuthis have been captured in the midwater trawl tows, they are not common in the stomach contents of predators (Clarke 1986). The known predators of various Mastigoteuthis species include Alepisaurus ferox, Globicephalus melaena, Hyperoodon planifrons, Mesoplodon carlhubbsi and Physester catodon (Rees & Maul 1956; Clarke 1986).

Mastigoteuthids occur from the tropical waters to the polar regions. Closing-net data indicate that all species live at depths of 500 to 1000 m diurnally and may ascend to shallower depths at night, even to as shallow as 50 to 100 m (Clarke & Lu 1975; Lu & Clarke 1975; Roper & Young 1975).

Several mastigoteuthid species (at least four) have been recorded from Australian waters (Lu & Phillips 1985), but their exact distributions are not well known. None of the species is endemic in Australian waters; some may have cosmopolitan distributions (cf. Nesis 1982).

The family has been reviewed relatively recenly by Braid et al.(2014.