Juvenile Dosidicus gigas are preyed upon by juvenile carnivorous fishes, including small tunas, other squid (Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis) and gulls. Once they reach 150mm to around 250mm in length, they start to become preyed upon by dorado, large tunas (and related species), as well as large sharks, swordfish and striped marlins, fur seals, sperm whales and short-finned pilot whales.
Dosidicus gigas can alter its coloration to match its environment, and squirt ink from its ink sac in order to confuse or temporarily blind would-be predators. This squid has been known to “fly” by propelling themselves out of the water to escape attack.
Known Predators:
Anti-predator Adaptations: cryptic
Dosidicus gigas is the largest squid in the family Ommastrephidae. These squid can weigh up to 50kg and have a mantle length of up to 2m. This species, like other squid, move via jet propulsion by moving water through their mantle as well as by fin movement.
Dosidicus gigas has a long and thick mantle, tentacles containing 100-200 hooked suckers each, and a powerful beak to tear through prey. They also have well developed eyes, and chromatophore cells like other cephalopods, which allow the squid to change color and flash to communicate. Their nickname "red devil" comes from the fact that when caught by fisherman and brought to the surface, these squid turn a bright red color.
Range mass: 50 (high) kg.
Range length: 2 (high) m.
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; heterothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: female larger
The longevity of this squid is about one year on average. Larger individuals can live up to 2 years. In captivity, captured Humboldt squid rarely live past a few days.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 2 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 1 years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 1 years.
Dosidicus gigas occupies vast habitat that ranges in depths from >250m during the day to near surface depths at night. This diel migration, or vertical migration between the day and night, is also characteristic of many prey species of Dosidicus gigas, so it is thought that the squid performs this vertical migration in order to follow its prey.
Although waters around and below 250 meters deep are often relatively hypoxic, Dosidicus gigas can apparently tolerate the low dissolved oxygen levels by suppressing its rate of oxygen consumption.
The squid can also migrate horizontally and travel up to 100 kilometers in a 3 to 4 day period, making it capable of long distance migrations.
Range depth: 0 to 700 m.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; saltwater or marine
Aquatic Biomes: pelagic ; coastal
Dosidicus gigas, otherwise known as the Humboldt or jumbo squid, inhabits the Eastern Pacific Ocean from northern California to southern Chile. This squid is believed to have both small scale migration within the Gulf of California, from the Baja peninsula to Guaymas Basin. It may also have a large scale migration as part of its life cycle, but little about their large scale migration is known.
In the past, Dosidicus gigas was only rarely spotted off of central California, but evidence now indicates that this squid has expanded its range northward through California following El Nino events which warmed northern waters. Humboldt squid have been spotted as far north as Alaska. Similarly, it has also expanded its range to southern Chile during warm water intrusions.
Biogeographic Regions: pacific ocean (Native )
Dosidics gigas was originally discovered in 1835 and named Dosidicus gigas. Later that century the genus Dosidicus was created, and finally in 1912, the similarities between the jumbo squid and the other species led to the taxonomic name change to Dosidicus gigas.
Like most other cephalopods, Dosidicus gigas has an extremely advanced eye and has chromatophores in the skin. Because they can travel in groups of up to 1200 individuals, they use visual cues to interact with one another. On possible example in Dosidicus gigas is that individuals can make their entire body flash red, apparently when angered or irritated. This warns nearby organisms that the individual is aggressive enough to attack if provoked. Dosidicus gigas uses its tentacles to feel something that it is curious about, such as a human diver.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile
Other Communication Modes: photic/bioluminescent ; mimicry
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; chemical
Dosidicus gigas is not a species of concern and appears to be expanding its range.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
Dosidicus gigas has direct development and grows very quickly; its lifespan is only about one year. The embryo develops for 6-9 days then hatches into a paralarval stage called a rhynchoteuthion when it is about 1mm. This paralarva (1-10mm mantle length) is distinguished by having its two tentacles fused into a proboscis, and survives in the upper planktonic layer. There it grows to become a juvenile (15-100mm mantle length). The juvenile then morphs into a subadult (150-350mm mantle length) before finally developing into an adult. During these developmental stages, the morphology and feeding habits of the squid changes.
Growth is fastest during the first four months of development. Dosidicus gigas has the highest juvenile development rates of all of the squid in its family. Juveniles can obtain a mantle length of up to 100mm by 45-55 days old.
The food demands of Dosidicus gigas, puts them in competition with humans for some commercially harvested fish or other squid. With climate change occurring and shifting their range, Dosidicus gigas may begin to affect fish stocks in the northern Pacific.
These squid are large enough to be a potential danger to human divers.
Negative Impacts: injures humans (bites or stings)
The Dosidicus gigas fishery is one of the largest fisheries in the Central Eastern Pacific (measured by annual tonnage caught), and is the largest cephalopod fishery in the world.
Dosidicus gigas is useful for a wide variety of research. For example, the apparent change in the distribution of this species is useful for climate change studies. The squid is also food for many recreational and commercial fisheries like tunas and billfishes.
Positive Impacts: food
Dosidicus gigas is a large and abundant pelagic species, and can play a very important role both as food for predators and as a mid-level carnivore. The species has very high reproductive potential, and when conditions are right, populations of the species can increase very fast.
There are also 9-12 parasitic worm species (trematodes, nematodes and cestodes) that infect the larval Dosidicus gigas, as well as a type of ciliate parasite genus found in this squid.
Commensal/Parasitic Species:
Dosidicus gigas is an active predator and pursues its prey. It uses suckers on its tentacles to capture prey animals and bring them towards its beak. Juveniles eat copepods and pelagic shrimp, and as Dosidicus gigas grows, its diet shifts more towards fish and other cephalopods. During their nightly vertical migration to the surface waters, adult Dosidicus gigas feed mainly on lanternfish, but will feed on a variety of other pelagic species including other fish, squids, and octopuses. Adults have been known to eat juveniles of their own species.
Animal Foods: fish; mollusks; aquatic crustaceans; other marine invertebrates; zooplankton
Primary Diet: carnivore (Piscivore , Eats non-insect arthropods, Molluscivore )
Dosidicus gigas only has one reproductive cycle during their lifetime, so they are known as monocyclic. Squids mate in a head to head position. Fertilization takes place inside the female. The two squids intertwine tentacles and the male places its spermatophores inside the buccal (oral) membrane of the female.
Because these squid spend much of their time below 250m, details about courtship is unknown, but sometimes mating has been observed at or near the surface. Given their well-developed brain, eyes, and chromatophore arrays, it's likely that some kind of courtship displays and behavior occur in this species, but it has not been documented.
Dosidicus gigas is believed to have only one reproductive cycle during their lifetime. Squids mate in a head to head position. Fertilization takes place inside the female. The two squids intertwine tentacles and the male places its spermatophores inside the buccal (oral) membrane of the female.
Females produce floating egg masses protected by a layer of jelly. The only documented mass found in the wild contained an estimated 0.6-2.0 million eggs (Staaf et alia, 2008). Examination of gravid females suggests that each female can produce 3-20 such masses.
Based on collections of newly hatched individuals, spawning is believed to occurs throughout the year, with peaks from October through January in the Southern Hemisphere.
Breeding season: Spawning season varies by locality
Range number of offspring: 5,000,000 to 32,000,000.
Average number of offspring: 1,200,000.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 184 to 395 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 236 days.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 196 to 276 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 219 days.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; fertilization (Internal ); oviparous ; sperm-storing
While fertilization occurs inside the female, once she lays the loose jelly-like egg batch there is no further parental investment.
Parental Investment: no parental involvement; precocial ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning)
The Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas), also known as jumbo squid or jumbo flying squid (EN), and Pota in Peru or Jibia in Chile (ES) is a large, predatory squid living in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the only known species of the genus Dosidicus of the subfamily Ommastrephinae, family Ommastrephidae.[3]
Humboldt squid typically reach a mantle length of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in), making the species the largest member of its family. They are the most important squid worldwide for commercial fisheries, with the catch predominantly landed in Chile, Peru and Mexico, however, a 2015 warming waters fishery collapse in the Gulf of California remains unrecovered.[4][5] Like other members of the subfamily Ommastrephinae, they possess chromatophores which enable them to quickly change body coloration, known as 'metachrosis’ which is the rapid flash of their skin from red to white. They have a relatively short lifespan of just 1–2 years. They have a reputation for aggression toward humans, although this behavior may only occur during feeding times.
They are most commonly found at depths of 200 to 700 m (660 to 2,300 ft), from Tierra del Fuego to California. This species is spreading north into the waters of the Pacific Northwest, in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
The existence of this creature was first reported to the scientific world by the Chilean priest and polymath Juan Ignacio Molina in 1782, who named it Sepia tunicata, Sepia being the cuttlefish genus. The French naturalist Alcide d'Orbigny renamed it Loligo gigas in 1835. In Chile, Claude Gay, another French naturalist, obtained some specimens and sent them to the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, where it was determined that the species did not belong with Loligo either. In 1857 the Danish zoologist Japetus Steenstrup proposed the new genus Dosidicus to house the species.[6]
The German zoologist George Pfeffer synonymized D. eschrichtii with D. gigas in 1912.[6][7]
This species is most often known as jumbo squid in English, but has also been called jumbo flying squid or Humboldt squid, with the last name most popular in naturalist sources.[8] The name Humboldt refers to the Humboldt Current, off the southwestern coast of South America, where it was first collected.[9]
A general name for this species in Spanish in Latin America is calamar gigante.[10][11] Local names for it are jibia in Chile[12] or pota in Peru.[13] They notably rapidly flash red and white when captured, earning them the nickname diablo rojo (meaning 'red devil') among local fishermen in Baja California, Mexico.[14]
The Humboldt squid is the largest of the Ommastrephid squids, as some individuals may grow to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) in mantle length[15][16] and weigh up to 50 kg (110 lb).[7] They appear to be sexually dimorphic, on average the females mature at larger sizes than the males.[17] Generally, the mantle (or body) constitutes about 56–62% of the animal's mass (which includes the fins or wings), the arms and tentacles about 11–15%, the head (including eyes and beak) about 10–13%, the outer skin (cuticle) 2.5–5.0%, the liver 4.2–5.6%, with the rest made up of the other inner organs. The gonads consist of 1.5–15.0% of the total mass. The gladius (the single inner 'bone') is 0.7–1.0%. Precise ratios depend on the age, sex and sizes of the individual squid.[18]
They are propelled by water ejected through a hyponome (siphon) and by two triangular fins.[19] Their two tentacles bear 100–200 suckers, each lined with razor-sharp teeth, with which they grasp prey and drag it toward a large, sharp beak.[19]
Humboldt squid are carnivorous marine invertebrates that move in shoals of up to 1,200 individuals. They swim at speeds up to 24 km/h (15 mph; 13 kn).
Electronic tagging has shown Humboldt squid undergo diel vertical migrations, which bring them closer to the surface from dusk to dawn.[20] Humboldt squid are thought to have a lifespan of about a year, although larger individuals may survive up to 2 years.[7]
Crittercams attached to two or three Humboldt squid revealed the species has two modes of colour-generating (chromogenic) behaviour:
Although these two chromogenic modes are not known in other squid species, other species do have functionally similar behaviours.[21][22]
The Humboldt squid lives at depths of 200 to 700 m (660 to 2,300 ft) in the eastern Pacific (Notably in Chile and Peru), ranging from Tierra del Fuego north to California. Recently, the squid have been appearing farther north, as far as British Columbia.[9] They have also ventured into Puget Sound.[23]
Though they usually prefer deep water, between 1,000 and 1,500 squid washed up on the Long Beach Peninsula in southwest Washington in late 2004[24] and red algae were a speculated cause for the late 2012 beaching of an unspecified number of juvenile squid (average length 50 cm [1.5 ft]) at Monterey Bay over a 2-month period.[25]
Humboldt squid are generally found in the warm Pacific waters off the Mexican coast; studies published in the early 2000s indicated an increase in northern migration. The large 1997–1998 El Niño event triggered the first sightings of Humboldt squid in Monterey Bay. Then, during the minor El Niño event of 2002, they returned to Monterey Bay in higher numbers and have been seen there year-round since then. Similar trends have been shown off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and even Alaska, although no year-round Humboldt squid populations are in these locations. This change in migration is suggested to be due to warming waters during El Niño events, but other factors, such as a decrease in upper trophic level predators that would compete with the squid for food, could be impacting the migration shift, as well.[9][26]
A 2017 Chinese study found that D. gigas is affected by El Niño events in the waters off Peru. The squid populations cluster into groups less, and are thus more dispersed, during El Niño events. Additionally, during warm El Niño conditions and high water temperature the waters off Peru were less favourable for D. gigas.[27]
The Humboldt squid's diet consists mainly of small fish, crustaceans, cephalopods, and copepods. The squid uses its barbed tentacle suckers to grab its prey and slices and tears the victim's flesh with its beak and radula. They often approach prey quickly with all 10 appendages extended forward in a cone-like shape. Upon reaching striking distance, they open their eight swimming and grasping arms, and extend two long tentacles covered in sharp hooks, grabbing their prey and pulling it back toward a parrot-like beak, which can easily cause serious lacerations to human flesh. These two longer tentacles can reach full length, grab prey, and retract so fast that almost the entire event happens in one frame of a normal-speed video camera. Each of the squid's suckers is ringed with sharp teeth, and the beak can tear flesh, although they are believed to lack the jaw strength to crack heavy bone.[19]
Their behavior while feeding often includes cannibalism and they have been seen to readily attack injured or vulnerable squid in their shoal. A quarter of squid stomachs analyzed contained remains of other squid.[28] This behavior may account for a large proportion of their rapid growth.[19][29] An investigation of the stomach contents of over 2,000 squid caught outside of the Exclusive Economic Zone off the coasts of Chile found that cannibalism was likely the most important source of food. Over half of the squids had the beaks of D. gigas in their stomachs, and D. gigas was the most common prey item. The researchers do note, however, that squids which were jigged in the light field around the survey vessel showed much more cannibalism.[17]
Until recently, claims of cooperative or coordinated hunting in D. gigas were considered unconfirmed and without scientific merit.[30] However, research conducted between 2007 and 2011 indicates this species does engage in cooperative hunting.[31]
The squid are known for their speed at eating; they feast on hooked fish, stripping them to the bone before fishermen can reel them in.[19]
Female squids lay gelatinous egg masses that are almost entirely transparent and float freely in the water column. The size of the egg mass correlates with the size of the female that laid it; large females can lay egg masses up to 3–4 m in diameter,[32] while smaller females lay egg masses about one meter in diameter. Records of egg masses are extremely sparse because they are rarely encountered by humans, but from the few masses found to date, the egg masses seem to contain anywhere from 5,000 to 4.1 million eggs, depending on size.[33]
Commercially, this species has been caught to serve the European market (mainly Spain, Italy, France, and Ireland), Russia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and increasingly North and South American markets.
It is the most popular squid in the world, as of 2019 a third of all squid hunted is this species.[34]
The method used by both artisanal fishermen as well as more industrial operations to catch the squid is known as jigging.[11][17] Squid jigging is a relatively novel method of fishing in the Americas.[35] It is done by handlining by artisanal fishermen, or by using mechanical jiggers.[11][36] Jigging involves constantly jerking the line up and down to simulate prey, a reel with an elliptical or oval-shaped hub helps with this.[36][37] Squid jigging is done at night, using bright overhead lights from the fishing boats which reflect brightly off the jigs and plankton in the seawater, luring the squid toward the surface to feed. Squids seem to like to strike at the jigs from adjacent shadowed areas, especially the shade under the hull of the boat.[35][36] Often as many as 8 to 12 jigs are on snoods on one handline, and many more are used on automated squid jigging systems.[36] The lines are hung anywhere from 10 to 100m in depth, depending on the power of the lamps used.[36][37]
The jigs are called poteras in Spanish. Different types of jigs are suitable for either handlining or for mechanical jigging for jumbo squid. They are made from bakelite and/or stainless steel, and measure 75 to 480mm in length. Jigs can have a single axis, or one to three 'arms' (ejes) which wave around when the jig is jerked,[11] and a series of crowns (coronas) of bristle-like wire-hooks, the hooks lacking barbs, making up the tail.[11][36] The body of the jigs is usually phosphorescent,[11] but glow-in-the-dark lures may be attached to them.[37] Jigs are extremely selective, not only can one type of jig attract only squid, often the jigs can select for a single species of squid, and even specific sizes of that species. The more arms and crowns, the more hooks, the higher the chances of snagging and actually reeling in the squid.[11]
Since the 1990s, the most important areas for landings of Humboldt squid are Chile, Mexico, and Peru (122–297, 53–66, and 291–435 thousand tonnes, respectively, in the period 2005–2007).[17]
Based on 2009 national fisheries data, in Mexico this species represents 95% of the total recorded catch of squid. 88% of this is caught off the coasts of Sonora and Baja California Sur.[10]
Because the flesh of the animals is saturated with ammonium chloride (salmiak), which keeps them neutrally buoyant in seawater, the animal tastes unpleasantly salty, sour, and bitter when fresh. To make the squid more palatable for the frozen squid market, freshly caught Humboldt squid are commercially processed by first mechanically tenderizing them, dropping them in icy water with 1% mixture of lactic and citric acid for three hours, then washed, then soaked in another vat with a 6% brine solution for three hours. There is also a method for home cooks to neutralize the unpleasant taste.[12]
Compared to other types of seafood, Humboldt squid is inexpensive in Pacific South America, retailing around US$0.30/kg in Peru, and about US$2.00/kg in Chile, in the early 2010s.[12][13]
In Chile the squid is eaten in chupes and paila marina.[12] In Peru, the practice of making ceviche from cheap squid began in the poorer parts of Lima when the meat became available in the 1990s, and has since spread to Cuzco. It is sold on the street in food carts, as well as cevicherias, restaurants dedicated to this cuisine.[13] In the United States it is made into 'squid steaks'.
Numerous accounts have the squid attacking fishermen and divers.[38] Their coloring and aggressive reputation have earned them the nickname diablos rojos (red devils) from fishermen off the coast of Mexico, as they flash red and white when struggling on a line.[14]
Although Humboldt squid have a reputation of being aggressive toward humans, some disagreement exists on this subject. Research suggests these squid are aggressive only while feeding; at other times, they are quite passive.[28] Some scientists claim the only reports of aggression toward humans have occurred when reflective diving gear or flashing lights have been present as a provocation. Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer who swam with a swarm of the animals for about 20 minutes, said they seemed to be more curious than aggressive.[39] In circumstances where these animals are not feeding or being hunted, they exhibit curious and intelligent behavior.[40]
Recent footage of shoals of these animals demonstrates a tendency to meet unfamiliar objects aggressively. Having risen to depths of 130–200 m (430–660 ft) below the surface to feed (up from their typical 700 m (2,300 ft) diving depth, beyond the range of human diving), they have attacked deep-sea cameras and rendered them inoperable. Humboldt squid have also been observed engaging in swarm behavior when met by the lights of submersibles, suggesting that they may follow or are attracted to light. Reports of recreational scuba divers being attacked by Humboldt squid have been confirmed.[41][42]
In Chile, at the end of the 50s and early 60s, electrophysiological and neurophysiological studies were carried out by the Montemar Institute of Marine Biology,[43][44][45][46][47] in Valaparaiso, Chile. The remarkable size of the squid giant axon and squid giant synapse possessed by the Humboldt squid made it ideal for manipulative work in the laboratory.[43] This research was chronicled in the documentary Montemar y Los Laberintos de la Memoria [Montemar and The Labyrinths of Memory]. 2016.
A 2008 study predicted that ocean acidification will lower the Humboldt squid's metabolic rate by 31% and activity levels by 45% by the end of the 21st century. It also predicted that the squid wouldn't be able to spend as much of the day in deeper and colder waters, as a larger proportion of the ocean would fall into the oxygen minimum zone.[48]
A more recent study, however, provided empirical and theoretical evidence that the squid metabolism was unaffected by ocean acidification.[49]
The Humboldt squid was featured in the final episode of the 2009 BBC's Last Chance to See with Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine. The episode was about blue whales, but the presenters interviewed fishermen who talked about the exploding diablo rojo population in the Sea of Cortez and human attacks, and showed a squid trying to take a bite of a protectively clad forearm.
In 2016 the squid featured in various television shows. Man Eating Super Squid: A Monster Invasion on the National Geographic Wild channel explored various attacks by Humboldt squid in Mexico. In the show, the squid is referred to as a real-life kraken and as "a global threat".[50] The second show was River Monsters: Devil of the Deep, where show host Jeremy Wade talks to fishermen allegedly attacked by the squid in the Sea of Cortez, and then catches the animals off the coast of Peru.[51] In the British Fishing Impossible, chain mail-clad divers plan to capture a Humboldt squid by hand in the Pacific Ocean, but are prevented from doing so due to bad weather.[52] In BBC Earth's Blue Planet II the squid's cannibalistic pack hunting was captured on film for the first time.[53]
The Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas), also known as jumbo squid or jumbo flying squid (EN), and Pota in Peru or Jibia in Chile (ES) is a large, predatory squid living in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the only known species of the genus Dosidicus of the subfamily Ommastrephinae, family Ommastrephidae.
Humboldt squid typically reach a mantle length of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in), making the species the largest member of its family. They are the most important squid worldwide for commercial fisheries, with the catch predominantly landed in Chile, Peru and Mexico, however, a 2015 warming waters fishery collapse in the Gulf of California remains unrecovered. Like other members of the subfamily Ommastrephinae, they possess chromatophores which enable them to quickly change body coloration, known as 'metachrosis’ which is the rapid flash of their skin from red to white. They have a relatively short lifespan of just 1–2 years. They have a reputation for aggression toward humans, although this behavior may only occur during feeding times.
They are most commonly found at depths of 200 to 700 m (660 to 2,300 ft), from Tierra del Fuego to California. This species is spreading north into the waters of the Pacific Northwest, in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
