How does the European common squid see?
The European common squid (Alloteuthis subulata) is a mollusc in the order Myopsida. Its eyes belong to the vision type Cephalopod colourblind polarisation.
Measured in this species: colour. Measured colour or sharpness: a measured receptor set or acuity in this species; other dials come from relatives or group defaults. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.
See your photo as the European common squidThis species is part of the full catalogue in the tool (full unlock). Your photo stays on your device.
What stands out
- It has one receptor class for colour, so it sees brightness but no hue.
- It stops seeing flicker at 30 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.[5][6]
The six dials
Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.
| Dial | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Colour receptors 1 receptor class: 499 nm (MWS (green)) measured in this species | Measured (not re-verified) | [1][2][3] |
| Sharpness | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Field of view | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Sharp zones (foveas) | No value in the catalogue. | ||
| Night vision | Rods vs cones no rods (invertebrate photoreceptors) | Group default | |
| Motion (flicker fusion) | Flicker fusion frequency 30 Hz group default: median of tier-A values in vision type V28 within phylum Mollusca (1 species: Sepia officinalis) | Group default | [4] |
Other senses
- polarisation vision: optional overlay of degree/angle of linear polarisation (Group default)
Related animals
- Beka squid same vision type
- Bigfin reef squid same vision type
- Japanese squid same vision type
- Longfin inshore squid same vision type
- Spear squid same vision type
- Swordtip squid same vision type
More molluscs: all molluscs with measured vision data.
Sources
- Chung W, Marshall N 2016. Comparative visual ecology of cephalopods from different habitats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.1346
- Porter ML et al. 2006 Table 1 (opsin accessions with lambda max; mostly cephalopod/arthropod) as extracted by VPOD. github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db
- VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
- species_v1:Bullock et al. 1991 (via Lafitte et al. 2022)
- Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
- Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631
Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?