Skip to main content
Aquarium Home

Golden Cuttlefish

Sepia esculenta

The golden cuttlefish is a small cephalopod found in seagrass beds and sandy bottom areas in the Western Pacific around Asia. For a small cephalopod, they are extremely intelligent and adaptive to their environment. The golden cuttlefish produce high amounts of offspring to keep their population at a stable number.

Aquarium Placeholder Image Blue with Logo

SPECIES IN DETAIL

Golden Cuttlefish

Sepia esculenta

CONSERVATION STATUS: Data deficient

CLIMATE CHANGE: Not Applicable

Geographic Distribution

They are mainly found in the West Pacific around the Yellow Sea.

Habitat

They live on the sandy bottom and seagrass beds in subtropical waters.

Physical Characteristics

They are small and golden in coloration. They have eight arms, two tentacles, and an oval plump mantle behind the head.

Size

Golden cuttlefish are 18 centimeters (7.1 inches) from their mantle to the tip of their arms.

Diet

Golden cuttlefish feed on smaller fish, crustaceans, and mollusks around their habitat. They are ambush predators who wait to attack their prey when the prey is most vulnerable.

Reproduction

The golden cuttlefish is, like most of its relatives, semelparous, meaning that shortly after they breed they will die. The males do many displays to attract females to breed, and when successful, the male deposits sperm into the female’s mantle to fertilize the eggs. The female will lay hundreds of eggs attached to substrate and hard surfaces on the seafloor. Within two months, the eggs will hatch and the offspring will spend a short time in a planktonic stage.

Behavior

The males have many displays to help attract a mate. Most of the time these displays are from color changing chromatophores in their skin. They have also been spotted burying themselves in the substrate of their habitat to hide from predators and help with hunting.

Adaptation

The golden cuttlefish, like its cousins, have specialized cells called chromatophores that change the color of the cuttlefish’s skin for camouflage, to give off warnings, and communicate with others.

Longevity

In the wild, they live from one to two years and shortly die after mating. Studies show that golden cuttlefish will have around the same life span when kept under human care.

Conservation

Being caught as a bycatch (an animal that was caught that was not intended to be caught) has an effect on the golden cuttlefish’s population. People can help stop bycatch by supporting the implementation sustainable fishing practices and endorsing limitations of unsustainable fishing practices.

Special Notes

The cuttlebone is used as enrichment for pet birds, and it is also used to help cast molten metal.

SPECIES IN DETAIL | Print full entry

Golden Cuttlefish

Sepia esculenta

CONSERVATION STATUS: Data deficient

CLIMATE CHANGE: Not Applicable

They are mainly found in the West Pacific around the Yellow Sea.

They live on the sandy bottom and seagrass beds in subtropical waters.

They are small and golden in coloration. They have eight arms, two tentacles, and an oval plump mantle behind the head.

Golden cuttlefish are 18 centimeters (7.1 inches) from their mantle to the tip of their arms.

Golden cuttlefish feed on smaller fish, crustaceans, and mollusks around their habitat. They are ambush predators who wait to attack their prey when the prey is most vulnerable.

The golden cuttlefish is, like most of its relatives, semelparous, meaning that shortly after they breed they will die. The males do many displays to attract females to breed, and when successful, the male deposits sperm into the female’s mantle to fertilize the eggs. The female will lay hundreds of eggs attached to substrate and hard surfaces on the seafloor. Within two months, the eggs will hatch and the offspring will spend a short time in a planktonic stage.

The males have many displays to help attract a mate. Most of the time these displays are from color changing chromatophores in their skin. They have also been spotted burying themselves in the substrate of their habitat to hide from predators and help with hunting.

The golden cuttlefish, like its cousins, have specialized cells called chromatophores that change the color of the cuttlefish’s skin for camouflage, to give off warnings, and communicate with others.

In the wild, they live from one to two years and shortly die after mating. Studies show that golden cuttlefish will have around the same life span when kept under human care.

Being caught as a bycatch (an animal that was caught that was not intended to be caught) has an effect on the golden cuttlefish’s population. People can help stop bycatch by supporting the implementation sustainable fishing practices and endorsing limitations of unsustainable fishing practices.

The cuttlebone is used as enrichment for pet birds, and it is also used to help cast molten metal.