Mantle short, bell-shaped, 5 cm in length. Fins oval and continuous with both lobes on the posterior margin. Surface smooth and dark purplish in color. Head large, with asymmetrical eyes (left larger than the right). Arms with biserial suckers. Tentacular sucker rings with 33─35 sharp teeth. Photophores on the mantle uniform in size, arranged in 8 diagonal rows. Photophores on left eye-lid 17, those on the right 7─8. Photophores on proximal ventral arm in 3 rows.
Distribution:
Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, North and Southeast Atlantic and the western Indian Ocean.
Remarks:
This species is separable from the preceding species, H. reversa, in having uniformal mantle photophores (reversa has two types of photophores) and different number of photophores on eye-lid (in reversa 18 on the left eye-lid and 7 large and 10─14 small light organs on the right). The photographed specimen has malformed arm tips.