Patagonian Longfin Squid

Mantle moderately elongate. Fins rhomboidal, short, their length about 40 to 45% of mantle length. Tentacles long, slender: tentacular clubs narrow, unexpanded, with relatively small suckers on manus, the median ones about 2 times the diameter of the marginal ones; teeth on club sucker rings pointed, very numerous: 25 to 35 (possibly 45). Arms elongate, especially III and IV; arm sucker rings with 6 or 7 broad, flat teeth in distal half, proximal half smooth; left arm IV hectocotylized in distal 1/3: suckers on dorsal row greatly reduced in size and set on elongated, triangular, swollen pedicles that grade smaller distally; ventral row unmodified.

Eastern pacific Ocean from southern Peru to southern Chile; reported in the south Atlantic from the Gulf of San Matias, Argentina to Tierra del Fuego. The northern limits on both coasts are unknown.

Maximum mantle length 28 cm.

A neritic speciesoccurring from the surface to 350 m depth but usually only to 285 m.Its biology is little-known.

Widely distributed along the Pacific coast of South America where it is caught in trawls incidental to other species. Peru landed 200 t in 1969. Taken off Argentina as bycatch in trawl fisheries. The squid fishery on the Patagonian shelf off Argentina started only recently as an exploratory operation, but soon developed into a directed fishery operated mostly by Polish vessels with annual yields of 4 to 5 000 t of 10 to 16 cm squid. A small part of this catch is exported to Spain. The total catch reported for this species to FAO for 1999 was 42 505 t. The countries with the largest catches were Falkland Is.(Malvinas) (22 502 t) and Spain (8 185 t).