Warm-water squids and pelagic octopuses in the Far Eastern seas

Some species of wide-spread tropical squids and pelgic octopuses (Histioteuthis hoylei, Alloposus mollis and others), based on beak findings in sperm whale stomachs, were common in the 1950s and early 1960s and widely distributed along the Kuril' Islands, eastern Kamchatka, in the Bering Sea, near the Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska, but later they were never recorded north of northwastern Honshu or southeast of the southern Kuril's. In 1990-1992 the squid Watasenia scintillans extended north to the middle Kuril's and, in smaller quantities, to the northern Kuril's while H. hoylei extended to the western Bering Sea. In the summer of 1992, Ancistrocheirus lesueurii, Mastigoteuthis dentata?, Eledonella pygmaea, and Allopsus mollis were also caught off the Shikotan, Kunashir, and Iturup Islands. A. lesueurii and E. pygmaea were caught in the Russian EEZ for the first time. We discuss why the warm-water species appear in the Russian Far Eastern seas again, after a long period of absence

Identity of the properties if the Cholinesterases of the optical ganglion fo the squid Ommastrephes bartrami from the South Atlantic and the great Australian Bight

The identity of substrate-inhibitor specificity with respect to several choline esters and organophosphorus compunds was demonstrated for the cholinesterases of the optical ganglion of the squid Ommastrephes bartrami, inhabiting the South Atlantic and the Great Australian Bight. Two cholinesterases with different properties were found in optical ganglia of these squid

Cephalopods of the Benguela Current off Namibia: new additions and considerations on the genus Lycoteuthis

The present study contributes new information on the cephalopods off Namibia, contains the first record of Ornithoteuthis volatilis (Sasaki, 1915) in the Atlantic, and adds records of six species in the Benguela Current and three species in Namibian waters. The presence of certain species seldom encountered in the Benguela Current has been confirmed. A compilation of the cephalopod fauna off Namibia had also been included, listing 65 species. Additional morphological data on Stoloteuthis leucoptera, Lycoteuthis lorigera, Architeuthis sp., Pholidoteuthis boschmai, Ornithoteuthis volatilis, Eledone nigra, and Graneledone sp. have been provided. The status of the genus Lycoteuthis has been reviewed in the light of the first collection of Lycoteuthis lorigera (Steenstrup, 1875) males in the Atlantic, and Lycoteuthis diadema (Chun, 1900) has been considered to be a synonym for Lycoteuthis loriger