Abstract
Statoliths are important hard structures of cephalopods, and examining their growth characteristics can help improve our understanding of key biological processes. Statolith weight (SW) and 10 statolith morphological variables were measured from a total of 453 samples [263 females of 188-364 mm mantle length (ML) and 190 males of 178-314 mm ML] of the south patagonian stock of Illex argentinus (Castellanos, 1960) collected from february to June 2007 off the exclusive economic Zone (EEZ) of argentina by chinese squid jigging vessels. Total statolith length (TSL) and maximum width (MW) were found to be good measures to describe statolith morphology. No significant difference was found between males and females in the relationships between TSL and ML, MW and ML, TSL and body weight (BW), MW and BW, and SW and MW. However, the relationships between SW and ML, SW and BW, and SW and TSL differed significantly between males and females. Our results suggest that the statolith morphological variables of TSL and MW are the best predictors of age and size for both sexes of this species, and the relationship between SW and ml and between BW and TSL could be used to distinguish between the sexes.
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