Paintpot cuttlefish

Amazing fact

The paintpot cuttlefish shoots out its long feeding tentacles to catch food in an instant.

市立しものせき水族館海響館

Paintpot cuttlefish in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The paintpot cuttlefish shoots out its long feeding tentacles to catch food in an instant.

Source市立しものせき水族館海響館 — スピード感あふれる捕食シリーズ③ハナイカ

THE REAL WORLD

The real Paintpot cuttlefish

Scientific name: Ascarosepion tullbergi
Japanese name: ハナイカ
Group: Ocean animals

Class: Cephalopoda
Order: Sepiida
Family: Sepiidae
Genus: Ascarosepion

Facts about the real animal.

It lives from the seas south of the Kii Peninsula to the South China Sea.

鳥羽水族館 — ハナイカ

It is brightly colored and does not grow very large.

鳥羽水族館 — ハナイカ

It moves by crawling along the sea floor.

鳥羽水族館 — ハナイカ

How the Paintpot cuttlefish lives

When walking, it uses its belly-side arms like front legs and flaps on its body like hind legs. The skin of these flaps contains special muscles and collagen. It walks by repeatedly extending and contracting the flaps.

一般財団法人沖縄美ら島財団

Basic data

Size: Mantle length: about 5–10 cm
Range: From south of the Kii Peninsula to the South China Sea

鳥羽水族館

Where the Paintpot cuttlefish has been recorded

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapan Asia Ocean

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: ハナイカ

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

鳥羽水族館 — ハナイカChecked: 2026-11-04
市立しものせき水族館海響館 — スピード感あふれる捕食シリーズ③ハナイカChecked: 2026-11-07
一般財団法人沖縄美ら島財団 — ハナイカの歩行に関する論文が掲載されました！Checked: 2026-11-07

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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