Bird-Snare Cuttlefish

Bird-Snare Cuttlefish

Habitat: Mainland; Central Sea
Type: Large Squid-like Predator
Length: 20 to 25 Feet
Weight: 1,000 to 2,000 Pounds

Bird-Snare Cuttlefish Showing Its
Remarkable Camouflage

The Bird-Snare Cuttlefish is one of the largest animals that lives in the Center Sea. Most of the time it stays just below the water, where it is difficult to see unless the light catches it the right way. It is best known for its habit of catching flying animals, and any bird or dactyl that passes too close to the surface is at risk of being taken.

It feeds on a wide range of prey. Fish and other sea animals make up most of its diet, but it will also take larger prey when the chance presents itself. Attacks on flying animals are sudden and violent. The animal stays hidden just under the surface, and when something passes overhead, two long feeding arms shoot straight up out of the water to grab it. Once caught, the prey is pulled under almost immediately.

Cuttlefish Attacking A Lake Dactyl

These feeding arms are unlike those of other cuttlefish. One side is lined with rows of sucker discs, while the other side is covered in sharp, hooked spines. The hooks are used when catching birds and dactyls, helping to hold onto struggling prey, while the suckers are more often used when feeding on fish and other marine animals. This gives it a strong grip no matter what it is catching.

Mimicking A School Of Fish
To Attract Lake Dactyls

One of its most effective hunting methods is used when targeting flying prey. The animal will settle just beneath the surface and change its color to a flat blue that matches the water. It then moves shifting, silver patterns across its body. From above, this looks like a small school of fish moving just below the surface. When a Lake Dactyl swoops down toward the would-be prey, the cuttlefish strikes upward and catches it before it can pull away.

The Bird-Snare Cuttlefish is highly adaptable and appears to learn from experience. Individuals that spend more time near the surface become especially skilled at this kind of hunting, and can remain nearly invisible even in open water. It can also change the texture of its skin, helping it blend in under different lighting conditions.

Under Attack By Spikefin

Despite its size, it is not without danger. Its main predator is the Spikefin, a smaller shark that hunts in packs. While the cuttlefish is much larger than these sharks, they attack together and tend to be well-coordinated. The cuttlefish is most at risk when it is near the surface, especially when it is focused on hunting. Its best defense in these situations is to vanish. By rapidly changing color and breaking up its outline, it can disappear from view long enough to escape an attack.

• Naturalist Note: The Bird-Snare Cuttlefish is almost certainly a giant coleoid cephalopod, closely related to modern cuttlefish, though far exceeding them in size. Its reported length of over 20 feet places it among the largest known soft-bodied marine predators.
  
  The dual-surface feeding arms described by Mercer are of particular interest. Other modern decapodiform cephalopods possess specialized tentacles for prey capture, typically ending in sucker-lined clubs. The presence of asymmetric armature—suckers on one side and hooked spines on the other—is exceptional. Hooked structures are known in some extinct and extant cephalopods, but not in this arrangement. This may represent a unique adaptation for gripping aerial prey, where resistance and escape forces differ greatly from those of fish.
  
  Its most common flying prey, the Lake Dactyl, seems to be a crest-less, toothy pterodactylid - possibly Cearadactylus or some other anhanguerid pterosaur.
  
  The hunting strategy involving dynamic color change and pattern projection aligns closely with known chromatophore and iridophore systems in modern cephalopods. Cuttlefish in particular are well known to use color patterns in unorthodox hunting tactics. In a recent study, a common cuttlefish was seen lulling its prey through hypnotic waves of color. However, the deliberate mimicry of schooling fish behavior implies a high degree of neural processing and learned behavior. This supports Mercer’s observation of advanced intelligence. Such coordinated visual deception would require not only rapid skin modulation but also an understanding of prey perception.
• 
  Predation by Spikefin (Hybodus or similar sharks) is also consistent with known behavior of smaller, cooperative predators targeting larger prey. The vulnerability of the cuttlefish at the surface reflects a common ecological tradeoff: access to high-value prey (flying vertebrates) comes with increased exposure.