Encyclopedia of Life Blog

Not an octopus, not a squid…what is a cuttlefish?

For one, it’s a cephalopod, that means “head foot” in Greek (☺), and in fact, all of the above are also cephalopods and are basically just giant mushy heads attached to various numbers of long suction-cup covered feet. Delicious.

These creatures, which also include the much stranger looking nautilus, are known for being the camouflage wizards of the world. If Gandalf was a sea creature, this would be it. Also, if you thought chameleons were cool, its time to get with it and realize who’s really got it going on. They are able to look like a nasty lumpy clump of brown seaweed one second and then be covered in moving iridescent rainbows the next. The species page had some excellent video of this happening. They also can squirt some seriously black ink at you if you scare them and have an attitude if that doesn’t work. Here is a video of a baby one hunting like a fiend:

The EOL species page for this particular cuttlefish was curated by scientist Roger Hanlon, who has been studying cuttlefish for almost three decades. His work was featured in a New York Times article in February. The article and accompanying video describe Hanlon’s theory on how their skin and brains work to help them change shape and color in seconds. Here is another short video of him explaining a bit about his work and about the magical camo abilities of cuttlefish in under three minutes:

The Australian Giant Cuttlefish, Sepia apama, is the largest cuttlefish on earth. That means that this gem is in fact, bigger than a bread box, but not by much; reaching just above ~20 inches long. They are world famous for of all things, their mating habits. Every year during the austral fall (May - July) in northern Spencer Gulf, northwest of Adelaide (they are found all along the southern coast of Australia normally), they gather to spawn by the hundreds. This is the only place on earth where cuttlefish have been observed to gather en mass to mate, and it has received great attention, starting out as an easy catch for fisherman and then morphing into a mecca for diving ecotourists. As a result of this the area is now mostly protected from overfishing and the cuttlefish are free to love and make wild colorchanging babies. (My advice, GO THERE! What better excuse to go to Australia! Here are some stories from tourists in the area.)

The species page features several awesome videos of them mating fighting, changing color and also laying their eggs, which look like gooey lychee nuts that they stick to the undersides of rocks.

A second reason to go check them out is that during this mating event they exhibit a fascinating example of what some eco-tourists like to call “crossdressing” something that was noticed by Hanlon during his observations of them there. This is the phenomena of small males using their camouflage to disguise themselves as females in order to sneak under the eyes of protective and violent larger males and sneakily mate with the females they are guarding. I like to call this “The Woody Allen” maneuver (brains outwits brawn and wins the girl) and it’s pretty genius. Also great fodder for pondering the different ways that organisms connive to pass on their genes in the struggle for survival.

Cuttlefish may sound familiar for a couple of reasons, their bones, cuttlebones (which are inside their heads and one of the things that distinguishes them from squid and octopi) are sold in pet stores to provide calcium and sharpen the beaks of domestic birds. The word “Sepia” comes from the Persian word for cuttlefish, artists used to use cuttlefish and squid ink to paint with and tone things, hence the setting on your digital camera that makes pictures look all old. People love to eat cuttlefish, two fun examples of this are in Italy where they make a dish called Risotto al Nero di Seppie, a tar-looking risotto dish made with cuttlefish ink, as well as dried cuttlefish which is a popular snack in Asia.

Streetside snack of dried cuttlefish in Asia

Finally in the popular novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Captain Nemo and his companions battle with a group of giant cuttlefish. While the cuttlefish loose, they do manage to kill one of the crew members. Jules Vernes’ description of the cuttlefish in the book is not completely scientifically accurate, but here is a video of our friend Sepia apama attacking a scuba diver (not very scary, but will give you an idea of  Vernes imaginative capabilities):

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.