Two Cuttlefish Fighting/Mating/Playing at the Australian Museum, Sydney

Two cuttlefish at the Australian Museum, Sydney. Not quite sure what they were doing, possibly mating or "fighting". They would hold back, do movements with their tentacles, then rush in, splay their tentacles out and seem to "kiss".

Cuttlefish change colour through the use of chromatophores, which contain pigments in an elastic sac called the cytoelastic sacculus. By changing the shape of this sac, the light entering is distorted and the reflected light alters the appearance of the skin of the cuttlefish.

Despite knowing this, I don't know exactly what they were doing. It's very strange! I will be emailing this to the Australian Museum staff asking what the cuttlefish were doing.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• cuttlefish
• tentacles
• colour
• color
• pigments
• fighting
• australian
• museum
• sydney

[menthurae]

Got an email reply back from the Australian Museum - turns out they were mating!

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Part 1:

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Thank you for your enquiry. Great footage, I actually saw it earlier today whilst at a social media workshop, we were all very impressed. Your footage shows two Mourning cuttlefish (Sepia plangon) mating, how successfully is yet to be seen. The larger of the two, with the darker colouring, is the male and the colour display is a part of the mating or courtship 'dance'.

[menthurae]

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Part 2:

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The male is passing packets of sperm, spermatophores, to the females mantle cavity using one or two of his specially modified arms, known as hectocotylus. The sperm is either used immediately or can be stored for long periods. In the case of our Mourning cuttlefish the female will fertilise and lay eggs soon after mating and the male will then attempt to mate again. this is why the male will often be a constant chaperone.

[alzorama]

He's saying, "See how handsome I am?" And she's hesitating because she's got to be convinced a bit more.

I love cuttlefish.

[greatdanemastiffx]

i would say the are getting ready to breed i have a salt water fish tanks and my clown fish do that when ready to mate