Northern pygmy squid
Amazing fact
The northern pygmy squid can eat the flesh inside its prey, leaving the shell empty and intact.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
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The northern pygmy squid can eat the flesh inside its prey, leaving the shell empty and intact.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Northern pygmy squid
- Scientific name
- Idiosepius paradoxus
- Japanese name
- ヒメイカ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Cephalopoda
- Order
- Idiosepida
- Family
- Idiosepiidae
- Genus
- Idiosepius
It lives in seas south of the Sanriku coast and from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific and Australia.
It gives off a sticky substance from its back and lives stuck to seagrasses such as eelgrass.
How the Northern pygmy squid lives
When it spots prey, it approaches with its arms facing the shell. It grabs prey with its tentacles and pulls it into the circle of its arms. It paralyzes shrimp with a toxin.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- Mantle length: up to about 2 cm
- Range
- South of Sanriku, Indo-West Pacific, and Australia
Where the Northern pygmy squid has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ヒメイカ
- 简体中文
- 玄妙微鳍乌贼
- 繁體中文
- 玄妙微鰭烏賊
- 한국어
- 꼬마오징어
- Português (Brasil)
- Lula-pigmeia-paradoxo
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — ヒメイカChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Idiosepius paradoxusChecked: 2026-11-06
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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