Photo Observation of the Month of November - Southern Calamari Squid

We have just completed our first month of the Marine Biodiversity of Southern Sydney Harbour project and I'd like to congratulate user eschlogl for his Photo Observation of the Month of a Southern Calamari Squid (Sepioteuthis australis) from Camp Cove. In addition to being an amazing photo, it fits in with our aim of encouraging iNaturalist users to submit archival photos taken at some of these sites, in this case throwing it back to 1999! This squid species has a varied colour pattern, ranging from light to dark brown in this case, with diamond-shaped fins that extend the whole length of the body. It prefers shallow inshore waters, often associating with reefs, sand, and seagrass beds. Males use spectacular courtship displays and females lay their eggs in finger-like strings of 2-6 eggs at the bases of weed and seagrass.

This journal post was written by project leader and iNaturalist member, Dr Joseph DiBattista.