Golden cuttlefish
Amazing fact
Golden cuttlefish move by taking water into their bodies and shooting it out through a funnel.
大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Golden cuttlefish move by taking water into their bodies and shooting it out through a funnel.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Golden cuttlefish
- Scientific name
- Acanthosepion esculentum
- Japanese name
- コウイカ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Cephalopoda
- Order
- Sepiida
- Family
- Sepiidae
- Genus
- Acanthosepion
Where the name “Golden cuttlefish” comes from
The Japanese name kou-ika comes from the large internal shell, called a ko, in its back.
大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所A cuttlefish found in seas from the Kanto region westward to the East and South China Seas.
Its back is brown, scattered with white and black spots, and males show bold crosswise bands.
Inside the back of its body it has a shell made of calcium carbonate, called a kō (cuttlebone).
How the Golden cuttlefish lives
On the seafloor, they match their body color to their surroundings and ambush gobies and shrimp. Before eggs are laid, males raise their arms, change body color and approach females. Females attach eggs wrapped in a covering to branches. After hatching, the young settle on the seafloor and eat animals such as amphipods and ragworms.
大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所Basic data
- Range
- West of Kanto, East China Sea, and South China Sea
Where the Golden 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
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
- コウイカ
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 — コウイカChecked: 2026-11-03
- 大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所 — コウイカ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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