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European Squid | Daily Animal Facts

Animal profile

European Squid

Loligo vulgaris

CephalopodaContinental shelf waters from the surface to a few hundred metresLeast Concern

Field profile

The European squid is a slender shelf-water species and an important European fishery target. Along with related loliginid squid, it supplied the giant axons that made much of twentieth-century neuroscience possible.

Scope note

This is an editorial profile, not a diagnostic field-identification guide or a substitute for current conservation assessments. Follow the cited sources on each fact for the evidence trail.

Published field notes

2025-06-10

European Squid

A squid nerve fibre explained how nerves work

Squid have an escape nerve fibre up to a millimetre across, hundreds of times wider than a typical vertebrate axon. Electrodes could be pushed inside it, which is how the action potential was finally measured.

Read with evidence →