Suprising a camouflaged cuttlefish spices up your diving, so here are a few insights into the secret lives of cuttlefish.
Reproduction Mating cuttlefish align their bodies head to head so the male can transfer a sealed package of sperm into a pouch beneath the female's mouth.
The female then scurries off to a quiet place where she draws eggs from her cavity and passes them over the sperm, thereby fertilising them.
In the event of there being multiple sperm deposits, it is the one at the back of the queue, ie the last to deposit, who wins the day.
The eggs are often then distributed in clutches coated with sepia both to act as an adhesive force and also possibly to camouflage them with their surroundings.
Cuttlefish can lay around 200 eggs in clutches often nearby those of other females.
After between 2 and 4 months the young hatch as tiny versions of their parents with a supply of yolk that nourishes them until their first kill.
Life cycle Unlike their squid and octopus cousins, baby cuttlefish are already highly developed and independent straight from hatching.
They immediately begin trying to track down small crustaceans and instinctively employ all their natural predatory armoury.
Despite their incredible range of mechanisms for both defence and attack and their obvious intelligence, cuttlefish do not live for a very long time.
They live for somewhere between 18 and 24 months and the females die shortly after spawning.
Predation The main predators of cuttlefish are sharks, fish and other cuttlefish.
Dolphins also attack cuttlefish but strangely eat only the heads.
The first form of defence the cuttlefish would likely employ would be to try to evade being spotted by predators by employing their remarkable camouflage which can make them look like coral, rock or sea bed in the blink of an eye.
Similar to its other cousin the squid, a cuttlefish can squirt ink into the water, enveloping its would-be predator in a disorientating cloud of foul tasting blackness.
Distribution Cuttlefish are widely distributed according to species.
For example the European common cuttlefish is found all along the eastern Atlantic from Scandinavia to South Africa and the Mediterranean.
Most other species, such as the flamboyant cuttlefish, are found in Asian waters and in Australasia.
They are not found in American waters.
Ecological Considerations Generally speaking cuttlefish are not high on the lists of endangered species and there is not a great deal of data on their population numbers.
However commercial fishermen in South Australia catch up to 71 tonnes during the mating season both for human consumption and use as bait.
Because of their short life span and spawning only once in a lifetime, the threats of over-fishing are obvious.
Currently there are no management restrictions in place to limit the number of cuttlefish that can be taken but there is pressure to add the giant cuttlefish to the endangered species list.
Dive Sites There are many great destinations for diving with cuttlefish.
These fascinating creatures can be found throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Cuttlefish are common in the dive destinations of Australia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia.