Results on main cephalopods from the 2021 Spanish Ground Fish Survey on the Porcupine bank (NE Atlantic) (Division 7c and 7k)

This working document presents the results of the most significant cephalopods caught on the Porcupine Spanish Groundfish Survey (SP-PORC-Q3) in 2021. Biomass, abundance, geographical distribution and length frequencies for Eledone cirrhosa (horned octopus), Bathypolypus sponsalis (globose octopus), Todarodes sagittatus (European flying squid), Todaropsis eblanae (lesser flying squid), Loligo forbesi (veined squid), Illex coindetii (broadtail shortfin squid), Rossia macrosoma (stout bobtail squid) and other scarce cephalopods have been analysed. The species E. cirrhosa, R. macrosoma and L. forbesi increased in terms of biomass and abundance, especially R. macrosoma, reaching the highest biomass value in the time series, whereas T. sagitattus increased only in abundance terms but decreased slightly in biomass terms. In contrast, T. eblanae and B. sponsalis decreased strongly after the high values of the previous two years, as did I. coindetii. Most of the usually scarce species increased their biomass, with the exception of H. reversa