Saturday Spineless Spotlight #1

flambouyant cuttle 3510, originally uploaded by bversteegh.

The flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) is one of the other known poisonous cephalopods¹. A tiny cuttlefish, adults are only known to reach ~8cm. They inhabit relatively "shallow" waters (<80m) in a very limited geographic range around Indonesia and northernmost Australia. They have been found primarily on mud flats and coral rubble areas. The name flamboyant comes from the purple, pink white, yellow and black colors it displays in ripples when disturbed. The colors are believed to a warning to potential predators of the flamboyants toxicity. They hunt during the day, walking across the ocean floor on their arms and using two flaps of their mantle. Known prey include small crustaceans (shrimp especially) and fish. They mate head to head, after which the female deposits the fertilized eggs in rock and coral caves or in coconut shells, but does not brood them. Like many cephalopods, after mating the adults soon die. The type specimen was collected in 1874 and is now part of The Natural History Museum of London collection.

Daisy Hill Cuttle Farm has some excellent video of a specimen they received from an aquarium display. These cuttles have not been successfully raised in captivity and are NOT recommended for home aquaria.



Check out the rest of the Daisy Hill Cuttlefish video's (warning they also have hard core cuttle porn!)

(edit: If Daisy Hill's Cuttle Porn is down... Dorid has offered us her own home video cuttle sex shots. Thanks for sharing Dorid!)

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Mollusca

Class

Cephalopoda

Order

Sepiida

Family

Sepiidae

Genus

Metasepia

Species

Metasepia pfefferi

1 - http://www.tonmo.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-9570.html Has this been published yet??