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Hawaiian bobtail squid — printable fact sheet
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Hawaiian bobtail squid
Euprymna scolopes
Euprymna scolopes, a thumb-sized squid that hunts in Hawaiian shallows at night, is the most important animal in the study of how animals and bacteria form partnerships. It hatches sterile, with an empty light organ, and within hours must recruit a single species of luminous bac…
Did you know?
- This squid can regulate the amount of light it emits by controlling the population of its symbiotic bacteria daily.
- The squid's light organ contains tissue with the same genes used to build eyes - including opsins - so it appears to be able to "see" its own bacterial light and regulate it. The daily venting of the bacteria is what keeps the symbionts' populations high in the surrounding seawater, so the squid is effectively seeding its own environment for the next generation. Newly hatched squid have only hours of viable window to acquire their bacteria, and one that fails never develops a functional light organ.
What I learned
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