Species Composition and Distribution of Pelagic Cephalopods 
from the Pacific Ocean off Oregon 
William G. Pearcy 1 
Much of our present knowledge about 
the species composition and distribution of 
cephalopods of the Pacific Ocean is derived 
from collections made on cruises of the "Alba- 
tross,” steamer of the U.S. Fish Commission, 
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth 
centuries. "Albatross” collections along the west 
coast of North America were taken mainly off 
California and Central America ol Alaska, and 
comparatively few collections were made off 
Oregon (Townsend, 1901). Neither Berry 
(1912) nor Hoyle (1904) lists any cephalo- 
pods taken off Oregon. A description of a new 
species of squid (Pearcy and Voss, 1963) and 
an abstract (Pearcy, 1963) are the only reports 
of pelagic cephalopods off Oregon. 2 Clearly, 
more data are needed before comparisons of 
fauna and generalization on zoogeographic dis- 
tribution can be made. 
METHODS 
A total of 385 .collections made between June 
1961 and July 1963 with a six-foot Isaacs-Kidd 
midwater trawl from the "R. V. Acona” pro- 
vided most of the data on pelagic cephalopods 
collected off the Oregon coast. Collections were 
made after dark within the upper 200 m (depth 
permitting) at a series of stations located 15, 
25, 45, and 65 miles, and at another station 
located between 65 and 165 miles, offshore 
along parallels of latitude between the Co- 
lumbia River and the California border (46° 
14.4'N, 44° 39.1'N, 43° 20'N, and 43° 00'N). 
Generally the stations off the central Oregon 
coast, 44° 39.1'N (off Newport), were sam- 
pled every month and other stations bimonthly. 
In addition to the 0-200m collections at 
1 Department of Oceanography, Oregon State Uni- 
versity, Corvallis, Oregon. Manuscript received Febru- 
ary 14, 1964. 
various distances from shore, tows were made 
to provide data on the depth distribution of 
cephalopods. Over one hundred collections 
were made to successive depths of 200, 500, 
and 1000 m over the outer edge of the con- 
tinental slope at a station 50 miles off New- 
port. For more details on sampling methods see 
Pearcy (1964). 
Collections were preserved with 10% forma- 
lin in sea water. Cephalopods were removed 
from the collections, identified, and the dorsal 
mantle length (DML) was recorded. 
Occasionally some cephalopods were collected 
with dip nets under lights at night and some 
with epibenthic otter trawls. 
RESULTS 
The families and species of pelagic cephalo- 
pods collected are listed in Table 1. These in- 
clude 17 species in 12 families. Six species are 
distributional records for the northeastern Pa- 
cific Ocean, reported previously only by Pearcy 
(1963). They are: Abraliopsis sp., Octopoteu- 
this sicula, Gonatopsis borealis, Taonius pavo, 
Cranchia scabra, and V ampyroteuthis inf emails. 
Only eight of the seventeen species are in- 
cluded in the study by Berry (1912) based 
mainly on benthic collections. 
Although most of these species were col- 
lected in the midwater trawl, several were cap- 
tured by other methods. Two Moroteuthis ro- 
bust a (DML 650 and 1350 mm) were caught 
in otter trawls off the northern Oregon coast 
in water deeper than 150 m. This species, re- 
ported from California (Smith, 1963) and 
Alaska (by Dali, in Berry, 1912), was recently 
reported off Oregon. 2 Loligo opalescens, a com- 
mon inshore myopsid of the west coast of 
2 Added in proof: J. M. Van Hyning and A. R. 
Magill. 1964. Occurrence of the Giant Squid ( Moro- 
teuthis robust a) off Oregon. Fish Comm. Oregon Re- 
search Briefs 10:67-68. 
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