CHIROTEUTHIDAE GRAY, 1849

Fernández-Álvarez, Fernando Á, Taite, Morag, Vecchione, Michael, Villanueva, Roger & Allcock, A Louise, 2022, A phylogenomic look into the systematics of oceanic squids (order Oegopsida), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 194 (4), pp. 1212-1235 : 1226

FAMILY CHIROTEUTHIDAE GRAY, 1849

(17 SPECIES IN FIVE OR SIX GENERA)

Diagnosis: Chiroteuthoidea with arm suckers in two series and tentacle suckers in four series or absent; club divided into two or three sections with symmetrical protective membranes; with enlarged ventral arms having expanded lateral membranes modified into sheaths for the tentacles; head with a long neck and usually with a brachial pillar in adults, with an indistinct eyelid sinus, with stalked olfactory organs, without occipital folds; funnel–mantle locking apparatus usually oval and with a series of knobs known as tragus and antitragus; tail with lateral ornamentation, lost in adults of some genera but retained in others; characteristic paralarval type known as ‘doratopsis’ with an elongated chambered neck and brachial pillar, and with vesicular tissue in the posterior mantle, with vesiculated arms in advanced paralarvae, and with gladius extending beyond the fins and supporting ornamented structures.

Remarks: Adults of the paedomorphic genus Planctoteuthis Pfeffer, 1912 retain the primary club; hence, the morphological characters related to the tentacle morphology in this diagnosis do not apply to this genus. The funnel–mantle locking apparatus of Grimalditeuthis bonplandi is fused.