Japanese flying squid
species of mollusc
The Japanese flying squid, Japanese common squid or Pacific flying squid (Todarodes pacificus) is a squid of the family Ommastrephidae. This animal lives in the northern Pacific Ocean, in the area surrounding Japan, along the entire coast of China up to Russia, then spreading across the Bering Strait east towards the southern coast of Alaska and Canada. They tend to cluster around the central region of Vietnam.
Description
Adult Japanese flying squids have several distinguishing features. The mantle encloses the visceral mass of the squid, and has two fins, which are not the primary method of propulsion. Instead, the squid has a siphon, a muscle which takes in water from one side, and pushes it out the other side: jet propulsion. The squid has eight arms and two tentacles with suction cups along the underside. In between the arms sits the beak, which houses a toothed, tongue-like appendage called the radula. Squids have ink sacs, which they use as a defense mechanism against possible predators. Squids also have three hearts.
The public source identifies “Japanese flying squid” as species of mollusc. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Japanese, flying and squid.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q780352. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Japanese flying squid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.