Cephalopods are a fascinating group that has not been in the interest of researchers in the Caribbean for many years. The southern Caribbean comprises the coasts of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. It is a very diverse, but still poorly known area. Historically, little research has been carried out with cephalopods in the area.

The first octopus species described for the southern Caribbean was Octopus zonatus^{Voss, 1968}. Subsequently, Euaxaoctopus pillsburyae Voss, 1975 was described, correcting a previous identification which suggested this species was Octopus defilippi Veranyi, 1851.

A renewed interest in the cephalopod fauna in the southern Caribbean started in Venezuela in the 1980s with octopus inventories (^{Arocha and Urusa, 1982}) and with the list of cephalopods trawled by RV Fridjov Nansen in 1988 (^{Arocha et al., 1991}). In Colombia, the interest in cephalopod fauna started several years later, when the first list of cephalopods for the Colombian Caribbean was created for the Mollusca catalog of the Colombian Caribbean by ^{Díaz and Puyana (1994)}. The literature showed that 17 species were found in the area, of which seven were squids and ten were octopuses. In 1996, the presence of the pygmy squid Pickfordiateuthis pulchela Voss, 1953 was reported by Arango and Díaz. In 2000, the first official list of cephalopods of Colombian waters was published by Díaz et al., with 34 species distributed among 20 genera and 11 families.

In 2002, several new cephalopods from deeper waters, 200 to 500m, were added to the list in a review of material from several research cruises in the Colombian Caribbean (^{Gracia et al., 2002}). In 2004, the first record of a Tremoctopus violaceous Chiaje, 1830 and was mentioned in Colombian waters (Gracia and ^{Díaz, 2004}). In 2010, Gracia and Ardila published a short note about the state of the cephalopods, summarizing previous works. The Caribbean is a very species-rich area with more than 110 species (^{Judkins et al., 2010}).

The southern Caribbean is of special interest because of the Isthmus of Panama wich creates a special fauna of very similar Atlantic and Pacific species on opposing sides of the isthmus. Several “sibling” octopuses were discussed by ^{Voight (1988)}.

In 2016, two new species of Octopus were described for the southern Caribbean (^{Guerrero-Kommritz and Camelo-Guarín 2016}), and a catalog of the octopus species of Taganga Bay was published (^{Guerrero-Kommritz et al., 2016}). It showed that at least 15 different morphospecies live in this bay, making it a hotspot of octopus diversity worldwide. Several of these species are still in the process of being described properly.

In 2017, the area’s sepiolids were discussed and Nectoteuthis pourtalesii (Verrill, 1883) was redescribed (^{Guerrero-Kommritz and Rodrigues-Bermudez, 2017}). In 2018, a review of deep-sea videos showed at least two unknown species of cephalopods in the area, namely a very large Cirrothauma and a pygmy Magnapinna squid as some Muusoctopus (^{Guerrero et al., 2018a},^b). The revision of Macrotritopus of the Taganga Bay showed that southern Caribbean species is a different species from Macrotritopus defilippi from the Mediterranean and was thus named Macrotritopus beatrixi (^{Guerrero-Kommritz and Rodríguez-Bermúdez, 2018}).

This paper results from the identification of several cephalopods from different collections to update the checklist of nominal cephalopod species in the southern Caribbean, these identifications are currently ongoing. The list presented here is the state of knowledge on the cephalopod fauna as of 2019.

For assembling this list, all available literature was consulted and voucher specimens were studied. The material used was deposited in several collections: Mollusca collection of the Museo de Historia Natural Marina de Colombia Makuriwa (MHNMC mol), the collection of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales de Colombia (ICN), and the Museo de la Salle (MLS).

Material for comparison was studied in the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, (MNHN), the Zoological Collection, the Centrum fuer Naturkunde Cenak, Hamburg, (ZMH) Germany, and the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA (USNM). All specimens were checked with morphological and meristic character analysis, and the identification was confirmed by comparing type material, where possible, and original descriptions and redescriptions. The cephalopods identified consist of six orders, 17 families, 33 genera, and 48 species, listed in table 1.

Table 1 List of cephalpod species found in colombian Caribbean waters. 

Species with an (*) have no voucher specimen, but have photographic evidence.

The revision of the cephalopods of the southern Caribbean Colombian coast showed that most specimens are benthic and shallow-water specimens. This is due to the lack of trawling efforts in open waters in past years. Most of the surveys were conducted in programs related to the exploration of hydrocarbon deposits on the seafloor.

The lack of oceanic species is due to the lack of oceanic research in the country as well as systematic research in the deep ocean. Only fragmentary and casual reports of these areas are known, for example there is no information about migration routes of sperm whales, known in the area since XIX century.

The list only contains valid, well-defined genera. Most species are well defined and some are problematic. Several specimens of Doryteuthis are confusing and do not match well to the described species and differ in size and several morphometric characters. A revision of the genus is urgently needed. With new analyses and specimens, this topic will be resolved in the near future.

The specimen of Heteroteuthis is a gigantic female twice as large as any known Heteroteuthis species. Unfortunately, females are almost impossible to identify to species level.

The case of Lolliguncula cf. brevis is interesting then comparing the data from the revision of the species from the type locality south Brasil (^{Zaleski et al. 2012}) the species in the southern Caribbean they are different and a revision of the species is needed to clarify if it is a local morph or a different species.

Most interesting is the only specimen of Vampyroteuthis; it is a very strange animal and is possible a juvenile form or something new. It differs from all specimens from Vampyroteuthis studied by the author.

Paroctopus cf joubini must be kept in doubt until a redescription of the species is made. This is a species complex that needs urgently a revision.

Small species are scarce, especially for the Octopoda where very few specimens are known. Systematic research is needed in several areas, especially in coraline areas and soft bottoms (e.g. mud and sand), as well as in rariphotic depths and deeper.

The number of reported species in the area will increase significantly in the next few years. At the moment about 10 new species are being described.