94
MALCOLM R. CLARKE
ecological data but it does not prevent a presentation of the main
problems and a concentration of the known facts. By such a condensation, the author hopes to make readily accessible facts which are at
present very widely scattered in the literature so that future workers
may see their contributions in perspective and the gaps and inadequacies in previous work may be filled and rectified.
It is quite evident that squids are by no means rare in the world
oceans and it may well be asked why so little is known of their ecology.
The most obvious reason for this ignorance is the great difficulty we
have in catching them. Even the largest nets used in oceanic waters in
the past (and these may have a fishing gape of 50 ft) only catch the
smaller squid of up to a foot in length and probably only a small
proportion of these. Such small catches are often made in waters
where large numbers can be seen sporting near the surface and where
predators have stomachs packed with so-called “ rare ” squids. Gear
used in the past has not only been incapable of catching many squids,
it has nearly always been non-closing so that little information can
be gleaned concerning the depth at which the species live. The paucity
of the material and the inability of nets to catch adults (although they
catch juveniles) has led to the taxonomic difficulties,
It has proved desirable to treat the subject in taxonomic order
because of the sparseness of the information. Such an arrangement may
also be useful because no comprehensive list of oceanic squids covering
the world’s oceans has been published since 1912 (Pfeffer); much of
the trepidation experienced by workers who wish to identify a few
squids probably arises from the difficulty in finding out what species
have been described and which are currently accepted as valid species.
In each of the taxonomic sections below the statement of known
facts has been presented in the same order where possible. Negative
statements have been avoided where possible because they would
contribute nothing and would overburden the text. Where no comment
is made and a heading in the following plan covers the topic, it may
be assumed that nothing is known on the subject as far as the author
has been able to ascertain from an extensive search of the literature.
The information in each systematic section has been arranged
according to the following scheme :
A. Distribution
This is affected by the author’s opinions on synonymy so that it has
been necessary to give a list of the most important synonyms of each
species. The impression one has of distribution is also influenced by
the numbers of samples taken in different areas of the globe. So
MALCOLM R. CLARKE
ecological data but it does not prevent a presentation of the main
problems and a concentration of the known facts. By such a condensation, the author hopes to make readily accessible facts which are at
present very widely scattered in the literature so that future workers
may see their contributions in perspective and the gaps and inadequacies in previous work may be filled and rectified.
It is quite evident that squids are by no means rare in the world
oceans and it may well be asked why so little is known of their ecology.
The most obvious reason for this ignorance is the great difficulty we
have in catching them. Even the largest nets used in oceanic waters in
the past (and these may have a fishing gape of 50 ft) only catch the
smaller squid of up to a foot in length and probably only a small
proportion of these. Such small catches are often made in waters
where large numbers can be seen sporting near the surface and where
predators have stomachs packed with so-called “ rare ” squids. Gear
used in the past has not only been incapable of catching many squids,
it has nearly always been non-closing so that little information can
be gleaned concerning the depth at which the species live. The paucity
of the material and the inability of nets to catch adults (although they
catch juveniles) has led to the taxonomic difficulties,
It has proved desirable to treat the subject in taxonomic order
because of the sparseness of the information. Such an arrangement may
also be useful because no comprehensive list of oceanic squids covering
the world’s oceans has been published since 1912 (Pfeffer); much of
the trepidation experienced by workers who wish to identify a few
squids probably arises from the difficulty in finding out what species
have been described and which are currently accepted as valid species.
In each of the taxonomic sections below the statement of known
facts has been presented in the same order where possible. Negative
statements have been avoided where possible because they would
contribute nothing and would overburden the text. Where no comment
is made and a heading in the following plan covers the topic, it may
be assumed that nothing is known on the subject as far as the author
has been able to ascertain from an extensive search of the literature.
The information in each systematic section has been arranged
according to the following scheme :
A. Distribution
This is affected by the author’s opinions on synonymy so that it has
been necessary to give a list of the most important synonyms of each
species. The impression one has of distribution is also influenced by
the numbers of samples taken in different areas of the globe. So