The Colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is a really really enormous squid, the biggest in fact. It is even bigger than the Giant Squid (Architeuthis dux et al) which is also really really enormous. They are both however, way bigger than the Australian Giant Cuttlefish even though, as cuttlefish go, it is gigantic (1.5 metres).
And the point of all this?
This useful diagram may help:
A useful diagram including squid
Aside from the fact that they are delicious, and their “spines” provide hours of endless of entertainment for imprisoned birds across the whole country, they are apparently highly intelligent and I am quite fond of them.
So there you have it.
Here is an actual photo of one.
The Giant Cuttlefish is your friend
Did you know:
Some male cuttlefish dress as women!*
The Giant Cuttlefish in History – After an exhaustive 15 second Google Search I am unable to find any reference to cuttlefish in History anywhere ever.
The Giant Cuttlefish at home. Between May and August up to 170,000 turn up to an 8km stretch of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia to have cuttlefish sex!
The Giant Cuttlefish – What do they eat? The main diet of cuttlefish consists of small fish and crustaceans (such as prawns and crabs and small reef fish). Cuttlefish shoot out two tentacles, which are usually tucked away in pouches under their eyes. Prey is pulled into the powerful suckered arms and then eaten by crushing the animal with their beak. And this is really spooky because I eat just the same way!
The Giant Cuttlefish and Global Warming – We’re all doomed, and that includes the cuttlefish.
Defending yourself against the Giant Australian Cuttlefish – If you are attacked by a Giant Cuttlefish it means you are underwater and you are going to drown anyway so leave the cuttlefish alone.
The Anthropomorphisation of the Australian Giant Cuttlefish – I have been drawing cuttlefish as americans in all of my US election cartoons. You can probably find those on the Crikey home page. Edward Lear also mentioned Cuttlefish in his poem “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo” in which he describes it as a “whimsical and tender fairy of the sea”. But that is about it.
Some more Giant Australian Cuttlefish facts – They spend their whole lives under water. They are allergic to cat hair. They do not like twisties, but they love cheezels.
Discuss
*This is really true. Deception is also another indicator of intelligence among beasts apparently.
I borrowed that cuttlefish photo off the BBC.
9 Comments
Further to Australian Giant Cuttlefish, the anthropomorphising of :
You mention “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo” – it would appear we had the same titles in our juvenile library, so you might just like to go back and check your copy of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, where Captain Nemo and his companions battle with a group of giant cuttlefish .
You are so right about their deceptive natures: people, don’t be fooled by the coy Sepia looks, (such as in the above, very fetching I must say, example) that butter wouldn’t melt in it’s mouth. The fact is, they have evolved the biggest eye size to body mass ratio in the animal kingdom, all the better to beguile you with.
If you can’t believe that such a cutie has the blackest of hearts, ( where do you think the ink comes from?) then view this movie of a close encounter of the cuttlefish kind where you see a diver barely escape with his life from a relentless giant australian cuttlefish attack.
All this talk of Edward Lear reminds me of a joke: William Shakespeare and Edward Lear are arguing who the best poet is, so they go up to Saint Peter, and say ” Who’s the best poet?” Saint Peter, being a fair minded sort of a bloke says “Ok, we’ll go for a bit of a stroll, I’ll nominate something, and youse make up a poem on the spot about it, OK?” . Shakspeare says OK, Edward say “Fair enough” and off they go. St Peter see this guy with bandy legs and says “Ok that’s it, what’ve you got Ted?” So Edward Lear says, in his clippity clop way,
“As I walked along the road,
I met a man whose legs were bowed”
St Peter says ” Not bad, not bad, how about you Will?”
“Ye Gods what manner of man is this,
Who hangs his balls in parenthesis”
I’ll get out of your way now, GBS.
I thought seahorses were the underwater crossdressers. Now you tell me the cuttlefish is just as degenerate. Where will it end?
Thanks again GBS. Although I am not certain that Verne is attributing human characteristics to the giant cuttlefish (I may be wrong). Perhaps I need a “Giant Cuttlefish In Literature and the Arts” component.
In a recent study, scientists placed either horizontal or vertical stripes on the walls of cuttlefish tanks.
If the stripes were vertical, the cuttlefish would raise an arm. If the stripes were horizontal they would stretch their bodies out horizontally.
The mediteranean cuttlefish, on the other hand, made an enormous contribution to history P.C. (precollider). It is a little known fact* that it was Julius Ceasar’s hatred of cuttlefish ‘en salata’ that convinced him to invade Britian, where no cuttlefish would be served, ‘en salata’ or otherwise. Without cuttlefish with garlic, verjuice and olive oil with just a touch of garum, history as we know it would have been different. In fact the history we don’t know might even have been different too.
* ie I made it up
Cuttlefish! Bloody cuttlefish….’The Brainy Bunch incident’* of March 2007 still distresses me. Those gits. I always knew they were responsible for wars throughout history. Probably.
*’The Brainy Bunch incident’ = not made up
The reason that “The Giant Cuttlefish in History – After an exhaustive 15 second Google Search I am unable to find any reference to cuttlefish in History anywhere ever.”
is because every one only looks for them in the period and location mentioned “Between May and August up to 170,000 turn up to an 8km stretch of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia to have cuttlefish sex!”
But of course there was one who didn’t get to mate; possibly ugly? Possibly lesbian? Possibly had a very saggy tits? Possibly all of the above? Too late to tell now, but…
After failing to secure a good ro-t in May-Aug 1967, this particular cuttlefish (her name was Sally by the way) floated around off the coast moping, drifting slowly eastward.
Unfortunately, by late December she was being stalked by a Chinese Cuttlefish Submarine. She got into the shallows to try and evade the darstardly undersea fishers, and got ensnared with the then PM Harold Holt just as the harpoon hit her.
So – When Harry met Sally, he ended up as bycatch – an unintended consequence of illegal Chinese cuttlefish poaching. The Chinese submariners had to keep his corpse on board because if they had released him, the distinctive markings of Chinese Cuttlefish Harpoons would have caused a diplomatic stink. The conspiracy theorists would have thought it was a planned assassination. I mean really – would you have believed that it was all an accident????
So that is a piece of hitherto undisclosed “Giant Cuttlefish in History”.
And it’s Australian history as well.
Speaking as someone who once had a large Cuttlefish try and do alien on their face i think they are all bastards!
After beating the rotten thing off with an abs iron, collecting my dive buddies (who found the whole thing hilarious!), we moved about 30m away to continue our dive. Vindictive bag of ink followed us and had another go. By that stage the dive buds weren’t laughing, we all had knives out and and went for it. Cuttlefish scuttled off under a ledge. We scuttled off across a big sand flat and got out soon after.
Think that they see themselves reflected in the dive mask. Mine was a 3 sided one at the time and i have been told by by other divers that that seems to piss them off. Also had a red wetsuit on.
And they taste like crap!
Should the ugly cuttlefish be redirected to Mt Isa?