The Unique and Strange Giant Cuttlefish
These creatures are strange and unique. Interesting to learn about and come from Australia.
The giant cuttlefish or sepia apama are very unique creatures living in the waters off the coast of Australia. They tend to be a very solitary and grow up to one meter in length. These interesting specimens are lazy fish resting 95 percent of the time using this time to concentrate on growing large. The exception to the rule is mating season which is when they become much more active.
Cuttlefish have eight tentacles and two feeding tentacles on their mouth. These mouth feeders can retract back into a pouch along their sides. They also have very thin fins on the sides of their bodies and breath through gills.
These strange creatures have three hearts and also have blue blood. Cuttlefish inside structure is sponge like that gives them their shape and is called cuttle-bone.
Cuttlefish can swim very slowly using their fins or can propel themselves through the water with jet speed using water to blow out like a funnel. Swimming with their tentacles close to their body they also have the unique ability to become more buoyant by filling their cuttle-bone with water which produces a gas.
Cuttlefish also can change their color and the texture of their skin resembling seaweed or grass just floating along in the water tricking their predators. They also like an octopus have an ink sack which when released confuses its predators so it can escape. Their worst predators are the bottle nose dolphin which figured out how to eat these scrumptious creatures and spit out the ink sack and the cuttle-bone.
They feed on grasses and seaweed and also small crustaceans. They use their two feeding tentacles to capture their pray and their strong jaws to crush shell fish.
Mating season starts with a unique dance with the male changing bright colors and patterns to attract his mate. Once he has captivated his mate the dance ends with the couples tentacles entwined. Laying hundreds of eggs a short time later. Breeding season begins in April each year and lasts sometimes into June. Beautiful and graceful these creatures are truly strange and unique.
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23 Responses to “The Unique and Strange Giant Cuttlefish”
On September 3, 2009 at 10:26 am
Yikes! That is one strange looking creature! Enjoyed your article a lot.
On September 3, 2009 at 10:44 am
Very amazing creature, and not so scary at the octopus or squid
On September 3, 2009 at 11:04 am
Excellent!! a wonders of surprising cuttlefish kingdom. well researched and educational too. Thanks a lot for sharing this great infos.
On September 3, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Fascinating! I had never heard of the cuttlefish. Great job!
On September 3, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I have learnt a lot about cuttlefish from this very well written and beautifully presented article. Good work.
Christine
On September 3, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Fascinating article and pictures!
On September 3, 2009 at 2:06 pm
i really enjoyed this piece. i love fish..pretty sure they show this cuttlefish in the movie Finding Nemo in the beginning..i could be wrong though but it looks similar..nice write
On September 3, 2009 at 2:22 pm
It is such a beautiful and amazing creature, it actually intrigues me. Some nice writing going on there that really kept me interested. Nice work.
On September 3, 2009 at 8:10 pm
They are weird but interesting creatures. Great pics.
On September 3, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Interesting and amazing cuttle fish,great work.
On September 3, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Unusual but interesting…:)
-Fresh Writing
On September 3, 2009 at 10:05 pm
cute little ocean critters, aparently fairly intelligent!
On September 4, 2009 at 1:03 am
The colors are absolutely amazing. Thanks for the wonderful information.
On September 4, 2009 at 1:47 am
Good, interesting stuff!
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
On September 4, 2009 at 2:10 am
My husband and I took a trip to Italy a few years ago, and we discovered that pasta with a cuttlefish sauce is very popular there. The black sauce looked a little suspect to me, but my husband thought it was OK (though he only ordered it once). Cool article–I’ve never actually seen one of the cuttlefish specimens.
On September 4, 2009 at 7:12 am
Interesting!
On September 4, 2009 at 7:55 am
Hi enjoyed this article it was very interesting and informative
On September 4, 2009 at 11:46 am
excellent article, you have my like!
On September 5, 2009 at 12:06 am
The first time I saw these were at the IMAX. They are amazing to watch
On September 5, 2009 at 6:27 pm
educational and informative,thanks
On September 6, 2009 at 10:41 am
Awesome!
On September 6, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I’ve never seen anything like this!!
On September 7, 2009 at 7:54 am
fascinating info and pics! great post!
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