Monday, July 25, 2011

Cuttlefish

Well, to help me with my work on CUTTLEFISH (the book) - I caught my first cuttlefish this evening. The beaches are full of literally 100s of thousands of washed up cuttle bones - (like one has in budgie cages) but these are huge here). We've caught hundreds of squid but never a cuttlefish... until tonight. The original Chthulhu was I suspect not a giant squid but a cuttlefish. They're rather like a half-way house between an Occy and a squid.

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4 comments:

  1. Francis TurnerJuly 26, 2011 at 1:08 AM

    Ah the things you learn. Until this post I had always thought that squid and cuttlefish were synonyms for the same critter.

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  2. CedarJuly 26, 2011 at 9:32 PM

    I'll bet they are tasty, though. Hmmm… tasty Cthulu. Interesting thought, there.

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  3. UnknownJuly 27, 2011 at 7:29 AM

    No Francis - the squid (aka calamari) is the corvette of cephalopods, whereas the cuttlefish is the river monitor. The squid is basically arrow shaped and unarmored, with big lateral 'wings'. They both move by 'jet propulsion'- squirting out water by rapid muscle contraction but the cuttlefish has a jet nozzle it can literally direct in any direction. The cuttlefish is much broader and rounder and armored (but quite ineffectually with a cuttlebone, and has a tiny steering frill unlike the broad wing of the squid.

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  4. bassetJuly 27, 2011 at 7:34 AM

    But dried cuttlefish (Japanese style) is AWESOME GOOD!

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