Squid Squid Squid are cephalopods in the order Teuthida with elongated bodies, large eyes, eight arms and two tentacles. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid can change colour for camouflage and signalling. Some species are bioluminescent, using their light for counter-illumination camouflage. Squid are members of the class Cephalopoda, subclass Coleoidea. The squid orders Myopsida and Oegopsida are in the superorder Decapodiformes (from the Greek for "ten-legged"). Two
Colossal squid colossal squids may grow larger than , possibly up to . In 2005 a specimen was captured at a depth of while taking a toothfish from a longline off South Georgia Island. Although the mantle was not brought aboard, the mantle length was estimated at over , and the tentacles measured . The animal is thought to have weighed between . The largest recorded specimen was captured in 2007 by a New Zealand fishing boat off Antarctica. It was initially estimated to measure in length and weigh . The squid was taken back to New Zealand for scientific study. A