Large, striped and confident, and males fence over females in the open.
A large cuttlefish with a mantle to about 42 cm, the body broad and flattened with the fin running the full length of each side. The resting pattern is a set of fine transverse brown stripes over a pale ground; the arms are held in a tight downward bundle and the fourth arm pair in males is broadened. It is bigger and flatter than the broadclub, and the striping rather than mottling separates the two at distance.
Among the more assertive cephalopods here. Males compete openly for females, flattening the body side-on, darkening the mantle and running dark bands along it, and pushing at each other with the arms; a smaller male will sometimes adopt female colouration and slip past a guarding male, which is well documented in the family. Egg clusters are attached to sea whips, rope and debris. Recorded from the shallows to about 40 m. Fished commercially across much of its range, and consequently more wary at some sites than at others.
Older references list it as Sepia pharaonis.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
