Ten-armed oval-bodied cephalopod with narrow fins as long as the body and a large calcareous internal shell; SYN. cuttle.
Any of a family, Sepiidae, of squidlike cephalopods with an internal calcareous shell (cuttlebone). The common cuttle Sepia officinalis of the Atlantic and Mediterranean is up to 30 cm/1 ft long. It swims actively by means of the fins into which the sides of its oval, flattened body are expanded, and jerks itself backward by shooting a jet of water from its “siphon”.
It is capable of rapid changes of color and pattern. The large head has conspicuous eyes, and the ten arms are provided with suckers. Two arms are very much elongated, and with them the cuttle seizes its prey. It has an ink sac from which a dark fluid can be discharged into the water, distracting predators from the cuttle itself. The dark brown pigment sepia is obtained from the ink sacs of cuttlefish. cuttle-fish