CUTTLEFISH

 
British Cuttlefish:

SEPIA

1)   Sepia officinalis  Linnaeus
2)   Sepia orbignyana  Férussac
3)   Sepia elegans   d'Orbigny

SEPIOLA

4)   Sepiola atlantica    d'Orbigny
5)   Rossia macrosoma  (Delle Chiaje)

	1    Sepia officinalis    Linnaeus 2   Sepia orbignyana    Férussac 3   Sepia elegans     d'Orbigny Photographs by Matt Stribley

Message: 1
   Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 19:47:32 +0100
   From: "Stella Turk" <stella@reskadinnick.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: Cuttlebones and a coconut etc. on the strandline

To all Beachcombers!

Today on Perranporth Beach, Cornwall, Paul Gainey found the cuttle bones of all three species of Sepia.  Most of the bones were in very good condition, and ten of them were the smallest species, Sepia elegans.  He also found a large coconut, still with its outer husk, as well as Buoy Barnacles (Lepas fascicularis) and By-the-Wind Sailors (Velella velella).  Many live mussels were cast up, many of them containing  a female of the tiny crab Pinnotheres which lives in the gill cavity of the host.

Stella Turk
Report on Vince Smith's One-List/Cornish Wildlife

EMail: Matt Stribley

Other animals had been breeding as well. We saw several clusters of pale blue eggs stuck to the undersides of rock ledges or empty shells, thumbnail-sized, nearly spherical, with a small point at the bottom, in groups of about 25. Although they had a relatively hard, brittle shell, this must have been soft and adhesive when they were laid, as they were flattened where they were stuck to the rock, and polygonal rather than circular where they pressed against each other. They strongly resembled the eggs of Common Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, in general appearance, though those are grape-sized and black, with a tough, flexible outer skin, and attached by a stalk. We broke one open in an attempt to determine what it was, and found inside a thin transparent layer of ‘egg white’ surrounding a large transparent ‘yolk’ with a tiny embryo attached to it, just visible as a minute cephalopod with a rounded body, huge eyes, and a little fan of tentacles; it was so small relative to the yolk that it must have been recently laid, perhaps ready for a slow development over the winter and hatching in spring. The most likely ‘parent’ seemed to be the cuttlefish Rossia macrosoma, which is said to grow to about 12 cm long, sometimes more, and to be very common off west Scotland. We also saw one group of eggs  of, presumably, another cuttlefish species, identical in shape but tiny, only 2-3 mm across, and white, attached at the base of an ascidian.

Cuttlefish Culture (Bob Alexander)
Cuttlefish:  Identification warnings (original Cuttlefish file)
Cuttlefish Pages (Matt Stribley)
Cuttlefish Report (Cornwall)
Sepiola (Little Cuttle) (Chris Batt)
Squid Eggs masses (Sussex coast)