Georgia Arnold

November 15th, 2015

Science/English

Brief Squid

The brief squid, or Lolliguncula brevis is a small, grey white colored fish that is somewhat transparent. A structural adaptation of the brief squid is that it has very large eyes so it can detect prey as well as predators with more ease. It has bilateral symmetry which means it can be symmetrical only if it is divided down its center point. The brief squid is in the eukaryote domain, animalia kingdom, mollusca phylum, cephlopoda class, myopsida order, loligindae family, Lolliguncula genus, and brevis species. They tend to live along the atlantic coast in estuaries with cooler to temperate waters. Their predators are sharks, dolphin, whales, seals, and us. They usually eat fish, crabs, and sometimes small shrimp. They are ectothermic heterotrophs which means they are cold blooded and rely on other heterotrophs or autotrophs for food. An interesting fact about this organism is that they can live anywhere from 5-30 years. A functional adaptation of the brief squid is that they squirt out ink to protect themselves. A behavioral adaptation of the brief squid is that the tend to swim in large schools.

I got my information from http://tolweb.org/Lolliguncula_(Lolliguncula)_brevis/19893, as well as http://txmarspecies.tamug.edu/invertdetails.cfm?scinameID=Lolliguncula%20brevis and http://www.chesapeakebay.net/fieldguide/critter/brief_squid