FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes Western

Ommastrephidae 793
Ommastrephes bartramii (Lesueur, 1821)
Frequent synonyms / misidentifications:
Ommastrephes caroli stenodactyla Rancurel,
1976 / Dosidicus gigas of Brazier, 1892.
FAO names: En - Neon flying squid;Fr - Encornet
volant; Sp - Pota saltadora.
Diagnostic characters: Funnel groove with
foveola and side pockets. Tetraserial suckers
on dactylus of tentacular clubs; medial manus
sucker rings with 1 tooth
in each quadrant greatly
enlarged; carpal fixing apparatus
consisting of
smooth-ringed suckers and
knobs on the tentacular
stalk. Small, irregularlyshaped,
subcutaneous
light organs present in
adults, embedded in the
ventral mantle and ventrally
in the head; no light
organs in larvae. Either left
or right ventral arm (IV) hectocotylized
by complete loss
of suckers and sucker bases
distally in mature males.
Mantle-funnel locking apparatus
not fused.
tentacular club
sucker ring
arm III
sucker ring
ventral view
dorsal view
Size: Maximum mantle length 700 mm (females) and 400 mm (males), commonly between 300 and
450 mm mantle length.
Habitat, biology, and fisheries: Ommastrephes bartramii occurs as mature adults and larvae around
the northern Hawaiian Islands but is very rare between 25°N and the equator in the western North Pacific.
In the southwest Pacific, adult O. bartramii have been caught between 23°42’ S and 45°45’ S where
surface water temperatures varied from 14.2° to 25.7°C and larvae as far north as 24°S in East Australian
Current waters. Adult O. bartramii are known to occupy a broad depth range both day and night from the
surface to at least 1 500 m. An adult female in the northwest Pacific carrying an ultrasonic tag remained
in the upper 100 m (mostly 40 to 70 m) during the night but stayed below 400 m depth during the day.
The vertical distribution of larvae and juveniles remains poorly known. Male O. bartramii first reach
maturity from 320 mm mantle length in the southwest Pacific. Considerable variation was evident in size
of maturity of females in summer catches in this region. The smallest female observed with oviducal eggs
measured 420 mm mantle length while the largest female with no eggs in the oviducts was 550 mm mantle
length. An examination of the degree of development of the web on the ventrolateral arms in O. bartramii
of both sexes suggests that growth of this structure is correlated with development of reproductive organs.
Mature males and a female (520 mm mantle length) washed ashore near New Caledonia in October 1973,
indicating that, in addition to off the central eastern Australian coast, spawning may be occurring in this
region in spring. Its rarity in the area makes it of little importance as a target fisheries species. However,
the northern and southern border regions of the Western Central Pacific may be important as a spawning
ground and larval habitat for this species.
Distribution: Ommastrephes bartramii is
the dominant surface-dwelling oceanic
ommastrephid circumglobally in subtropical
and temperate oceanic waters
and is only rarely encountered in continental
slope waters and tropical latitudes.
This bisubtropical species is the
most widespread of all the ommastrephids.
It is replaced as the dominant om-
?
mastrephid in tropical Indo-Pacific
?
waters by Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis.