Unkown Cuttlefish????????????

[cuttlefishguy]

This post is in conjunction with my post from Cuttlefish Available. For those who havent looked at it Im an importer of coral and fish and have been able to aquire some sepia bandensis I know what they are and what they look like. However some of my suppliers have listed a few new cuttlefish and I can't find out much about them on the net, there names are sepia prashadi and sepia kobiensis. Does anyone know about these cuttles.


Thanks

 

[monty]

From Nesis, it sounds like S. prashadi is pretty big (14cm mantle length.) It says it's got 2 "enormously large" and 2 somewhat smaller suckers on each club. Found "From the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman to Zanzibar, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Eastern India. Outer Shelf. Fairly common in the Red and Arabian Seas. Fished locally."

Also from Nesis, S. kobiensis is described as probably a species complex, also mainly outer shelf, ML 7cm infrequently 9cm, Fished in southern Japan and China. Found from southern Hokkaido, Honshu (both coasts) and the Yellow Sea to the Philippine Islands and Gulf of Tonkin and the northern part of the Indian Ocean from the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to Burma.

Norman has nothing on prashadi, but describes kobiensis:

body to 7cm, dist. Japan to at least S. China Sea, abundant in shallow waters to at least 150m, recognized by iridescent red-pink markings of a v-shaped strip above each eye and stripes on the 1st to 3rd arm pairs.

Since these are both species fished for food, you can find some info on them in the FAO guide as well (which I won't bother to copy):

http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0150e/a0150e00.htm

 

[DWhatley]

Thanks for trying to find out what you are selling!

 

[cuttlefishguy]

I always try and find out about certain fish or coral before I sell them. Like I said before these cuttles have just started showing up on my price lists that I get from my suppliers. I will have to find out more info from them I guess.

Thanks

 

[Thales]

Monty gave all the info I was able to find on them.
Both of these have been on lists over the years, but they never seem to make it to the states alive or at all. When I tried to order them a few times (before I stopped ordering adult wild caught cuttles) they were simply omitted from the order or bandensis was substituted - with a greater than 50% DOA. I got the feeling they were a kind of bait and switch listing.

 

[cuttlefishguy]

Did you buy them from a retailer or a wholesaler? My suppliers are all wholesale I supply fish stores with coral and fish my suppliers are pretty good as far as shipping but then again its not always about how a fish is shipped but how that fish will do with the shipping. I will have to find out from my suppliers if they are grown or are hatchlings. If I can get some here and they make it alive does anybody want these types of cuttles.

 

[Thales]

From the exporter through one of the wholesalers I work with/for.