In August, 1973, deposited egg masses of the squid, Doryteuthis kensaki, were observed by the mean of SCUBA diving at the east coast of Tsushima Is., western Japan. The sandy bottom of the spawning ground is generally flat and descends gradually toward the offing, and no remarkable topographic feature was recognized such as rock or submarine canyon, unlike the spawning ground of Loligo opalescens at La Jolla, California. Through two diving observations of twenty minutes each, several dozen of egg masses were found on the sandy bottom at a depth of about 30-40 meters. An egg mass measures about 50 cm in diameter and consisted of several hundreds of egg capsules. The basal ends of the egg capsules were entangled each other and imbedded in sand and fastened there. Even in the area where egg masses were dense, distances between each masses were longer than 1.5 meters. In the course of the diving observations, an attempt to search for the living or dead parent squids has been made but no evidence was found.
抄録全体を表示