Bigfin reef squid
Amazing fact
Bigfin reef squid rapidly change their body color to communicate with others.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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Bigfin reef squid rapidly change their body color to communicate with others.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Bigfin reef squid
- Scientific name
- Sepioteuthis lessoniana
- Japanese name
- アオリイカ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Cephalopoda
- Order
- Myopsida
- Family
- Loliginidae
- Genus
- Sepioteuthis
A large squid. By day it stays in deeper water, and at night it moves into shallow water.
It draws water in through a gap in its mantle and shoots it out of its funnel, swimming forward or backward with ease.
It catches fish with its feeding tentacles, which are much longer than its other arms.
How the Bigfin reef squid lives
It carries captured prey to the mouth at the center of its arms. Newly hatched squid tend to gather in shoals near the sea floor. Adults tend to live alone, but form shoals again in the breeding season.
葛西臨海水族園University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- Mantle length: 40–45 cm, 50 cm or more葛西臨海水族園
- Lifespan
- up to 315 days in captivityUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
- Active
- At night (nocturnal)University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
- Diet
- Fish葛西臨海水族園
- Range
- Tropical and temperate waters from the western Pacific to the Indian Ocean葛西臨海水族園
Where the Bigfin reef squid has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- アオリイカ
- 简体中文
- 莱氏拟乌贼
- 繁體中文
- 萊氏擬烏賊
- 한국어
- 흰꼴뚜기
- Español
- Calamar de arrecifes
- Français
- Calmar de récif
- Deutsch
- Großflossen-Riffkalmar
- Português (Brasil)
- Lula-de-recife-do-Indo-Pacífico
- Italiano
- Calamaro di Lesson
- العربية
- الحبار ذو الزعانف الكبيرة
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Cumi-cumi telur
- Tiếng Việt
- Mực lá
- ไทย
- หมึกหอม
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 葛西臨海水族園 — アオリイカChecked: 2026-11-03
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Sepioteuthis lessonianaChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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