How to Use bobtail in a Sentence

bobtail

noun
  • Hawaiian bobtail squid sleep under the sand all day, coming out to forage at night.
    — National Geographic, 30 June 2018
  • Most of his tail was amputated, leaving a very cute little stubby bobtail on his behind.
    — Kaitlyn Keegan, Hartford Courant, 8 July 2022
  • Hawaii is home to several squid species, including the Hawaiian bobtail squid.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 13 Nov. 2025
  • At nightfall, the Hawaiian bobtail squid digs itself out of the sand and rises into the ocean water like a spaceship taking off.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2013
  • The 2-year-old bobtail cat belonged to Sexton's son, Kamryn Potter.
    — Maggie Menderski, The Courier-Journal, 18 Aug. 2022
  • The Hawaiian bobtail squid creates its own light, using special organs filled with glowing bacteria.
    — Discover Magazine, 27 Apr. 2011
  • That afternoon, members of the convoy drove their bobtail trucks through Black Lives Matter Plaza.
    — Washington Post, 18 Mar. 2022
  • The 128 baby bobtail squid will be used as part of research into the effects of spaceflight on the interactions between microbes and animals.
    — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 3 June 2021
  • Every evening, nocturnal Hawaiian bobtail squids (Euprymna scolopes) emerge from their burrows in shallow waters of the Pacific to hunt for shrimp.
    — Quanta Magazine, 19 Feb. 2019
  • Others, like one energetic Japanese bobtail, were more of a handful, biting at the toys used by the judge to get their attention and attempting to scale the scratching posts on either side of the judge's table.
    — Grant Lancaster, Arkansas Online, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Hawaiian bobtail squid light up via bioluminescent bacteria living in one of their organs; the light camouflages them against moonlight on the surface and eliminates their shadow, obscuring them from predators.
    — Liz Langley, National Geographic, 2 May 2019
  • Studies of the squid's giant axon helped spawn modern neuroscience decades ago, and the light organ of the bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) powered a revolution in the study of symbiotic host-microbe interactions.
    — Danna Staaf, Science | AAAS, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Other talkative breeds include the oriental shorthair, the Balinese, the Japanese bobtail, the Tonkinese, the Burmese, the sphynx, and the Bengal.
    — Joan Morris, Mercury News, 9 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bobtail.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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