Sepiola: Onychoteuthis: squid
This drawing by PH Gosse depicts two squid belonging to the genera Sepiola and Onychoteuthis. Sepiola is also known as a bobtail squid due to their rounded shape. They are closely related to cuttlefish. Onychoteuthis is also known as the clubhook squid.
Object Summary
- Accession Loan No.
- 809/1997/51
- Category
- Fine Art
- Collection Class
- Drawings
- Medium
- paper collage on paper painted black
- Common Name
- Sepiola: Onychoteuthis: squid
- Simple Name
- drawing
- Inscription Transcription
- Drawing of a small Squid called Sepiola, not frequently found on our coasts. The arms are provided with suckers, shown more highly magnified in the lower half of the sheet. Two of the arms are longer than the others and have suckers only at their clubbed extremities. This little animal can dart backwards by forcibly expelling water through a fleshy tube called the funnel. When at rest, it usually buries itself up to the eyes in sand or shingle, making a pit in the sand by blowing jets of water through the funnel by moving small stones one at a time by means of the arms. It has the power of rapidly changing its colour, and, if angered or alarmed, its hue is almost instantaneously altered from a pale parchment dotted with pink to a deep reddish brown. A drawing below, on the right hand, shows that the club of the tentacular arm in another Squid, called Onychoteuthis, is furnished with strong horny hooks.; Bottom 8 N3
- Period Classification
- Victorian (1837-1901)
- Production County
- Devon
- Production Country
- United Kingdom: England
- Production Person Initials
- Philip Henry
- Production Person Surname
- Gosse
- Production Year Low
- 1850
- Production Year High
- 1880
