''Idiosepius thailandicus'', also known as the thai pygmy squid, is a species of
bobtail squid native to the
Indo-Pacific waters off
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
.
[Reid, A. 2005. Family Idiosepiidae. ''In:'' P. Jereb & C.F.E. Roper, eds. ''Cephalopods of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of species known to date. Volume 1. Chambered nautiluses and sepioids (Nautilidae, Sepiidae, Sepiolidae, Sepiadariidae, Idiosepiidae and Spirulidae)''. FAO Species Catalogue for Fishery Purposes. No. 4, Vol. 1. Rome, FAO. pp. 208–210.] The extent of this species' distribution is still to be determined and records of ''Idiosepius'' dwarf squid away from Thailand, south to Indonesia and north to Japan, may be attributable to this species.
Females grow to 10 mm in
mantle length (ML), while males are not known to exceed 7 mm ML.
[Okutani, T. 1995. ''Cuttlefish and squids of the world in color''. Publication for the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the National Cooperative Association of Squid Processors.]
The
type specimen
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...
was collected in the
Gulf of Thailand and is deposited at the
Marine Fisheries Division in
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...
.
[Current Classification of Recent Cephalopoda]
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In the Gulf of Thailand off eastern Thailand ''Idiosepius thailandicus'' was recorded among seaweed in the littoral zone
The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal a ...
in Rayong Province
Rayong province ( th, ระยอง, ) is one of seventy-six provinces (''changwat'') lies in eastern Thailand. Neighboring provinces are (from west clockwise) Chonburi, and Chanthaburi. To the south is the Gulf of Thailand.
, per capita ea ...
and in a mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...
habitats in Chanthaburi Province. In mangrove habitats the squid adhered their eggs to the roots of the mangrove. In the Andaman Sea, this species occurred in subtidal seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the or ...
beds near the mouth of estuaries lined with mangroves and on sand bars which were interspersed with rocks. In these habitats the eggs were attached to the underside of blades of seagrasses. These squids and their relatives have a glue gland on their dorsal body surface that they use to adhere to submerged vegetation and other objects. Their life cycle is thought to include a juvenile pelagic stage.
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2504284
Bobtail squid
Molluscs described in 1991