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
Magnoteuthis microlucens by NELHA operations manager Jan War, a reference to the fact that the specimen had only eight arms, like an octopus, rather than the eight arms and two tentacles of most squid. An examination of the specimen conducted by Richard Young of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, however, concluded that it is was an unnamed species of the genus "Mastigoteuthis". The specimen was likely missing its tentacles due to them being torn off during capture. It was formally described in 2008 as "Mastigoteuthis microlucens". Magnoteuthis microlucens Magnoteuthis microlucens is a species of squid; the most common species of "Mastigoteuthis"