Past estimates have pegged squid's life span at anywhere from one to four years. And of course fishermen have known for decades that the animal is a migratory creature that comes to Cape waters every spring to spawn. The hatchlings live off yolk for four to five days, and then begin preying, probably on copepods at first and then later on larval fishes and shrimp. Some portions of their migration back out is fueled by cannibalism. The question of how they reproduce is quite complicated - and still poorly understood, Hanlon said.
Every female has at least two and probably three or more sources of sperm.
The female gathered that sperm in an off-shore mating, in a head to head position. When she arrives inshore, the female pulls a jelly-like matrix of eggs out of her body and holds it her arms and releases the stored sperm to fertilize hundreds of eggs. The males are fighting for temporary access to the females. During spawning in local waters, the successful male takes a position alongside the female, grasps her from underneath, and deposits sperm on the side of her mantel near her oviducts. When the female extrudes her eggs, some are fertilized by this sperm from the most recent male, while some are fertilized by the older sperm stored in the pouch.