Wildlife
Giant cuttlefish
The Australian giant cuttlefish is the largest of the world’s hundred or so species of cuttlefish. It can grow to lengths of about a metre and weigh over 10kg (22 pounds). Like all cephalopods, it is carnivorous.
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Cross-dresser
Life
Undersized male cuttlefish have a sly way to get to the girls.
It seems humans aren't the only ones to use dirty tricks when it comes to getting a mate. It goes without saying that there is more to a cross-dresser than meets the eye, but some male cuttlefish have developed it to a fine art. Too small to fight for a mate, this male changes his appearance to trick a courting pair of cuttlefish into believing he's just another female looking to mate. The strategy works: the other male is fooled and the cross-dresser nips in quick while he's distracted!
Cuttlefish
Wild Down Under
The favourite prey of giant cuttlefish is sparse so they live and hunt alone except during the breeding season.
Cuttlefish first mesmerise their victim then take aim and fire. They are deadly accurate. The rocky reefs of the Great Australian bight are vital in the breeding season where giant cuttlefish gather in their thousands.
Distribution
The Giant cuttlefish can be found in a number of locations including: Australia. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
Habitats
The following habitats are found across the Giant cuttlefish distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Shallow seasShallow seas cover the continental shelves. These sunlit, or neritic, waters are where the oceans are most productive, where biomass is highest and where all the major sea fisheries of the world take their catches.
Behaviours
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Ambush predator
Adapted to swimming
Camouflage
Carnivorous
Courtship display
Egg layer
Polygynous
Semelparous
Spawning
Visual communication
PredatorAdditional data source: Animal Diversity Web
About
Sepia apama, also known as the Australian giant cuttlefish, is the world's largest cuttlefish species, growing to 50 cm in mantle length and over 10.5 kg (23 lb) in weight. Using cells known as chromatophores, the cuttlefish can put on spectacular displays, changing colour in an instant.
S. apama is native to the southern coast of Australia, from Brisbane in Queensland to Shark Bay in Western Australia. It occurs on rocky reefs, seagrass beds, and sand and mud seafloor to a depth of 100 m.
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Classification
- Life
- Animals
- Molluscs
- Cephalopods
- Sepiida
- Sepiidae
- Sepia cuttlefish
- Giant cuttlefish
Video collections
Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.
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Wildlife wind-ups
It's not only humans that like a good joke, animals play all kinds of tricks on one another in their attempts to gain an advantage.
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What on Earth...? 2009
Watch the year's highlights from the BBC's exploration of the planet's hidden corners and rarest creatures: from the turquoise seas of the South Pacific to the Lost Land of the Volcano.
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The wildlife of Life
In autumn 2009, a major new series brought us life as we've never seen it before.
Elsewhere on the web
- Animal Diversity Web (animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu)
- Giant Australian cuttlefish biology (australian-animals.net)
- ARKive: Images of Life on Earth (arkive.org)
- The Cephalopod Page photos and facts (thecephalopodpage.org)
- Australian Giant Cuttlefish (wikipedia.org)
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