Talk:Cuttlefish

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what's the status?
Are cuttlefish considered "least concern" or "threatened" or "endangered"? They're on the menu quite a bit so I'm assuming that they're plentiful? Does any form of aquaculture exist for cuttlefish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.151.233 (talk) 06:51, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Living in the Carribean and Americas
My wife and I saw a group of 6 Cuttlefish in August 2015 off of the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, near the city of Azua. We observed them for several minutes as they did not swim away. They were in shallow (8' deep water) and close to shore. These were not mistaken as squid. The article states that these are not "in the Americas", but this is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.53.71.21 (talk) 13:10, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

In response to above: What you and your wife saw are Caribbean Reef Squid. While they do look quite similar to Cuttlefish, they are indeed squid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:346:C003:9A57:7D72:45DE:EE2C:7473 (talk) 12:36, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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walking and locomotion
I was watching a BBC documentary last night and it showed a Flamboyant cuttlefish "walking" on the sea bed. The programme stated it was the only cuttlefish that did this, which is also stated in our own Flamboyant cuttlefish article, but is unsourced. Is this likely to be reliable? Also, this Cuttlefish article is missing any mention of locomotion. I can work on this in a while, but if anyone else feels motivated to do this, please go ahead. DrChrissy (talk) 16:03, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Adhering to the format of the article
In the references at the end of the article if I type in a reference & number it in sequence in the box provided, how do I select the correct font size & have it consistently formatted with the other references? Jericevic0008 (talk) 09:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Just insert a reference in the text, at the fact which is supported by the reference. It will then be automatically displayed in the reference list, with proper linking, numbering and formatting. See for example how it is done in Cuttlefish section and compare the result in References (the last ref).
 * You may also want to see Help:Referencing for beginners introduction page and Citing sources for more instructions. :) --CiaPan (talk) 10:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160102210520/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_9y2NacdJY to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_9y2NacdJY

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Mating pictures
Both from what I know and from what the page itself says, cuttlefish mate while facing each other. However, both pictures labeled as cuttlefish mating patterns are incorrect. PieThrowerChamp (talk) 01:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC) PieThrowerChamp

Semi-protected edit request on 28 May 2017
A misnomer is widely taken for granted that animals such as jellyfish, starfish and crayfish have the "fish" part in them, despite that they are not fish.

I strongly recommend that you change the first sentence of this article by adding "or cuttles".

- Cuttlefish or cuttles are marine animals of the order Sepiida.

A cuttle is a synonym of cuttlefish and it is not a abbreviation of the word cuttlefish, although it can sound like a abbreviation and be used in a way like it is a abbreviation of the word cuttlefish.

I suggest adding a redirect link "cuttle" that leads to the Cuttlefish article. Gyrkin (talk) 22:36, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. I found an entry for "cuttle" as a synonym for "cuttlefish" in four major dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, Oxford American, Random House, and Collins), and in no case is it listed as archaic, obsolete, or dialectal, so this seems like a reasonable addition to the lead sentence. The page Cuttle couldn't be created as a redirect because it already exists as an article about a different topic; however, I have added a hatnote to the top of that article to facilitate navigation to this article. Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   06:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * A citation needs added at that mention.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 05:02, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Not really. However, I have added one. And I'll never get those three minutes back. My experience is that if one really thinks a citation is needed and one is easily located, it's better to just add it instead of tagging. Your mileage may vary.   Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   12:36, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

The dictionaries and the source Rivertorch added just mention that it refers to the cuttlefish, but I am unable to find it used by itself to refer to the animals in any article. While jellyfish and starfish are widely known as jellies and sea stars, I find no evidence that cuttle is in any sort of use. Therefore I believe this should be mentioned (perhaps with context of not being fish) in the fourth paragraph with the etymology, rather than the first sentence. Reywas92Talk 20:58, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * That it's in the dictionaries and not listed as archaic or obsolete suggests that the usage is out there—perhaps not commonly found in modern sources available online, but it exists. I don't have full OED access at present, unfortunately. What exactly would we say about it in the fourth paragraph? Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   22:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Something like "Because cuttlefish are not actually fish, cuttle is an also an accepted name." Google Books and Scholar give results, typially older, for "cuttle fish" and "cuttle-fish", as well as "cuttle bone", but I just don't see evidence that "cuttle" is in use and should be in the title. User:Gyrkin, can you point to standalone usage of this variant? Reywas92Talk 21:46, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I think we'd need a source for that. It doesn't seem self-evident, at any rate; some words get shortened for other reasons. Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   04:03, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Brain and body, mass versus size
Regarding these changes, I'm not so sure. I don't have time to watch the entire program now to see what the source says, but size and mass are not the same thing. It may be that both are true, but not necessarily: either brain or body may have an unusually low or high density. This is not made clear in the wikilinked article. Pinging Lappspira. Rivertorch FIREWATER  05:10, 20 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I did therefore changed the link in a second edit to a part of the article that mentions "size". –Lappspira (talk) 05:22, 20 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, I saw that. I guess it's reasonable. I just worry it's not clear that mass and size do not necessarily correlate. Rivertorch FIREWATER  06:17, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Reproduction Section
There is a sentence in the reproduction section: "The cuttlefish that can paralyze the other first, by forcing near its mouth, wins the fight and the female."

I don't know if it's just me, but it doesn't make sense to me. Could someone rewrite it. It sort of looks like someone was editing and accidently edited a word out.

Capturts (talk) 14:30, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

external link request
Could a link to TONMO.com be added to the External Links section? It is twice referenced in the contents of the article and is a useful / responsible resource (founded in 2000) for people seeking to keep cuttlefish in home aquariums. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonmo (talk • contribs) 13:38, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Sex ratio
Can anyone clarify the sentence under reproduction that says "up to 10 males are available for every female"? (I have seen this figure quoted elsewhere at "4 to 11", also without a definition). Does it refer to an operational sex ratio or a physical sex ratio? Physical sex ratios different from 1:1 are unusual and have a species-specific explanation. If it is an operational sex ratio, how does it arise? Rocky Allen 2 (talk) 08:47, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

No information on the "Vasseuriina" suborder
Literally the only reference I find to this suborder on google scholar is here https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=t07HKaBXf4IC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Vasseuriina&ots=Kl-GiPJFPq&sig=oshxeF2NLiqJvzyubAffFD48JSU#v=onepage&q=Vasseuriina&f=false. There are no wiki pages or stubs for this suborder or any of its related orders. I can find the Vasseuriidae family here https://www.gbif.org/species/4627749 albeit without reference to the suborder, which makes me think that there *is* quality information about this suborder somewhere out there, but it isn't sourced anywhere on this page. Does anyone which physical reference works or papers were done to establish the existence of this suborder?

Similarly, I see that "Belosepiellidae" is listed as belonging to both of the cuttlefish suborders. Is there some sort of existing taxonomical dispute going on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GaBeRock (talk • contribs) 04:14, August 22, 2021 (UTC)

Bobtail squids don't seem to be cuttlefish
I wanted to find out if you might find cuttlebones washed up on beaches in the Americas. This article says cuttlefish (order Sepiida) don't even live in the Americas, but I also found an article on ScienceDirect that says "a few species of Semirossia occur along the west Atlantic coast", and this article includes their family, Sepiolidae, under cuttlefish. But then I saw that Sepiolidae are actually bobtail squid (order Sepiolida), which don't have a cuttlebone, which contradicts this article, plus the page cuttlebone says it's actually family Sepiidae that are called cuttlefish. I'm not sure how to fix this myself since I'm no marine biologist, but it could definitely use some clarification. — W.andrea (talk) 18:57, 12 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see an inconsistency: Cuttlefish has Sepiolidae as a family under Sepiida/Sepiina, while Bobtail_squid has Sepiolidae as a family under Sepiolida. Sepiolidae itself is hardly an article but matches the former. Cephalopod lists Sepiolida as a separate order from Sepiida. I'm not sure the best way to fix this either. Reywas92Talk 20:38, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The most recent thinking is that Sepiolida is an order consisting of the bobtail and bottletail squid. This is a sister clade to cuttlefish and true squid.
 * This paper explains it better than I can!
 * https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02348-y
 * I'd go about fixing the taxonomy on Wikipedia but I don't want to mess up the tables and all the links! Ionophore (talk) 22:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

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