Biological Notes

Abstract

COLOSSAL CUTTLE-FISH.—Mr. T. W. Kirk adds to our rapidly-increasing knowledge of large cuttle-fish in an important paper lately published (Trans. New Zealand Institut. vol. xiv). One species referred by him to Steeastrup's genus Architeuthis, and called A. verrilli, was found stranded at Island Bay, Cook's Strait, New Zealand, in June, 1880. When first found on the beach, it was not quite dead; the longer arms measured twenty-five feet; the blades had a row of fifteen suckers along each side and a middle row of nineteen. The smaller arms were about eleven feet nine inches, with a width of seven and a half inches. They were furnished with suckers and fleshy tubercles, but these shorter arms were of unequal length. The fleshy membrane connecting these was about eleven inches deep. The head was four feet three inches in circumference, the eyes five inches by four; the body was seven feet six inches in length, and nine feet two inches in its greatest circumference. While this large cuttle differs in some respects from the type of Steenstrup's genus, Mr. Kirk prefers to wait for fresh material ere creating a new genus. Another large cuttle is referred to a new genus, Steenstrupia, but its long pair of arms had been torn off at a length of six feet two inches, when it was found in Cook's Straits; its body was long (nine feet two inches), almost cylindrical, but very slightly swollen in the middle, head long (one foot eleven inches), narrow sides, nearly straight, eyes larger, and with lids, sessile arms, all same length and size (four feet three inches), suckers, thirty-six on each arm, in two equal rows, each with a bony ring armed with from forty to sixty sharp incurved teeth. The fin was rhomboidal, posterior lateral. The internal shell was six feet three inches long. The new species is called S. stockii.