Cuttlefish

Sepia pharaonis

The pharaoh cuttlefish is a large cuttlefish, reaching up to 42 cm in mantle length and around 5 kg in weight.

Family

Sepiidae

Avg Size

30-50 cm

Habitat

It is native to at least the western Indian Ocean, including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, where it is the most frequently caught of all the local cuttlefish species. Hunting at night, it rises into shallower water to feed on assorted smaller fish, crabs, and sometimes other cuttlefish. It is believed to have entered the Mediterranean as a Lessepsian migrant via the Suez Canal, after many of its cuttlebones washed ashore in Israel in the early 2000s, and it shows migratory movements off India's southwest coast, ranging furthest north in August and further south in May.

Behaviour

Like most cephalopods, the pharaoh cuttlefish uses its two long tentacles to capture prey, following a three-step sequence of attention, positioning, and seizure. Adults and most juveniles begin the attention phase by drawing their arms and tentacles into a triangle shape and turning toward the prey. In the positioning phase the tentacles ease slowly out from the centre of that triangle as the animal closes in, and finally, in the seizure phase, it advances and shoots its tentacles forward to grasp the prey before drawing it back.

Where & When to See It

Careless Reef

Cuttlefish

Where & When to See It

More Invertebrates