lagomorpheus
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I'm almost kind of relatively certain that this is a cuttlefish, though its behavior and slenderness made me assume it was a squid until I studied my video more closely in an attempt to identify it.
When I first encountered it, it was sort of an overall, mottled reddish-brown, looked like the skin of a pomegranate, and he quickly inked me and flitted off like squid do. It's motion in the water was fast and hectic; I've never seen a cuttlefish behave like this.
When I caught up to him he was color cycling in a weird, horizontal stripe pattern (the two photos attached are within one second of each other). I've also never seen a cuttlefish change to such a boldly-striped, bright pattern, though I certainly wouldn't put it past them, nor have I seen many cuttles as slender as this guy. The eye is the classic cuttlefish W, but now I see that some squids have that eye as well! (Granted, most of them seem to have "sepia" somewhere in their latin name.) It also had a bit of texture to its skin, which I'm not familiar with in squid.
The only photo I've found of any slender cephalopod with long stripes like this in my ID books is the Sepia sp. 4 in "Cephalopods: A World Guide"; but the pattern is different in number and color, oh and it's also only known from that one photo from South Wales, so I'm guessing this one is a more common species. Was it a juvenile? A squid after all? I must know!!
Lembeh, about 8 cm, 12-15 meters or so.
When I first encountered it, it was sort of an overall, mottled reddish-brown, looked like the skin of a pomegranate, and he quickly inked me and flitted off like squid do. It's motion in the water was fast and hectic; I've never seen a cuttlefish behave like this.
When I caught up to him he was color cycling in a weird, horizontal stripe pattern (the two photos attached are within one second of each other). I've also never seen a cuttlefish change to such a boldly-striped, bright pattern, though I certainly wouldn't put it past them, nor have I seen many cuttles as slender as this guy. The eye is the classic cuttlefish W, but now I see that some squids have that eye as well! (Granted, most of them seem to have "sepia" somewhere in their latin name.) It also had a bit of texture to its skin, which I'm not familiar with in squid.
The only photo I've found of any slender cephalopod with long stripes like this in my ID books is the Sepia sp. 4 in "Cephalopods: A World Guide"; but the pattern is different in number and color, oh and it's also only known from that one photo from South Wales, so I'm guessing this one is a more common species. Was it a juvenile? A squid after all? I must know!!
Lembeh, about 8 cm, 12-15 meters or so.
