Concept

Cuttlefish

Summary
Cuttlefish or cuttles are marine molluscs of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone, which is used for control of buoyancy. Cuttlefish have large, W-shaped pupils, eight arms, and two tentacles furnished with denticulated suckers, with which they secure their prey. They generally range in size from , with the largest species, the giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama), reaching in mantle length and over in mass. Cuttlefish eat small molluscs, crabs, shrimp, fish, octopus, worms, and other cuttlefish. Their predators include dolphins, sharks, fish, seals, seabirds, humans, and other cuttlefish. The typical life expectancy of a cuttlefish is about 1–2 years. Studies are said to indicate cuttlefish to be among the most intelligent invertebrates. Cuttlefish also have one of the largest brain-to-body size ratios of all invertebrates. The "cuttle" in cuttlefish comes from the Old English name for the species, cudele, which may be cognate with the Old Norse koddi (cushion) and the Middle Low German Kudel (rag). The Greco-Roman world valued the cuttlefish as a source of the unique brown pigment the creature releases from its siphon when it is alarmed. The word for it in both Greek and Latin, sepia, now refers to the reddish-brown color sepia in English. The earliest fossils of cuttlefish are from the end of the Cretaceous period, represented by Ceratisepia from the Late Maastrichtian Maastricht Formation of the Netherlands. Although the Jurassic Trachyteuthis was historically considered possibly related to cuttlefish, later studies considered to be more closely related to octopus and vampire squid. The family Sepiidae, which contains all cuttlefish, inhabits tropical and temperate ocean waters. They are mostly shallow-water animals, although they are known to go to depths of about . They have an unusual biogeographic pattern; they are present along the coasts of East and South Asia, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean, as well as all coasts of Africa and Australia, but are totally absent from the Americas.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related lectures (1)
Statistical Thermodynamics: Degeneracies and Laplace Transform
Covers degeneracies in statistical thermodynamics and the Laplace transform.
Related publications (10)

Non-invasive investigation of the morphology and optical properties of the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea with optical coherence tomography

Anders Meibom, Niclas Heidelberg Lyndby, Sandrine Denise Françoise Bessette, Michael Kühl

The jellyfish Cassiopea largely cover their carbon demand via photosynthates produced by microalgal endosymbionts, but how holobiont morphology and tissue optical properties affect the light microclimate and symbiont photosynthesis in Cassiopea remain unex ...
ROYAL SOC2023

Design of a modular robotic system that mimics small fish locomotion and body movements for ethological studies

Francesco Mondada, Alexey Gribovskiy, Frank Bonnet, Bertrand Eric Collignon

Robotic animals are nowadays developed for various types of research, such as bioinspired robotics, biomimetics, and animal behavioral studies. The design of these robots poses great challenges as they often have to achieve very high-level performances in ...
Sciyo2017

Merging microfluidics and micro-array concepts: from molecular to nematode-based bioassays

Matteo Cornaglia

Essential in biomedical research is the necessity of gathering statistically relevant data about large populations of specific biological entities,€ e.g. organisms, cells or molecules, while preserving detailed information about each single entity under in ...
EPFL2015
Show more
Related people (1)
Related concepts (25)
Kraken
The kraken (ˈkrɑːkən) is a legendary sea monster of enormous size said to appear in the sea between Norway and Iceland. Kraken, the subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos, was first described in the modern era in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700. This description was followed in 1734 by an account from Dano-Norwegian missionary and explorer Hans Egede, who described the kraken in detail and equated it with the hafgufa of medieval lore. However, the first description of the creature is usually credited to the Norwegian bishop Pontoppidan (1753).
Cuttlebone
Cuttlebone, also known as cuttlefish bone, is a hard, brittle internal structure (an internal shell) found in all members of the family Sepiidae, commonly known as cuttlefish, within the cephalopods. In other cephalopod families it is called a gladius. Cuttlebone is composed primarily of aragonite. It is a chambered, gas-filled shell used for buoyancy control; its siphuncle is highly modified and is on the ventral side of the shell. The microscopic structure of cuttlebone consists of narrow layers connected by numerous upright pillars.
Structural coloration
Structural coloration in animals, and a few plants, is the production of colour by microscopically structured surfaces fine enough to interfere with visible light instead of pigments, although some structural coloration occurs in combination with pigments. For example, peacock tail feathers are pigmented brown, but their microscopic structure makes them also reflect blue, turquoise, and green light, and they are often iridescent.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.