Keferstein, 1866
Description of family characters
The cuttlebone (shell or sepion) is internal, usually calcareous, porous and finely laminate. The mantle is broad, robust, oval to circular in outline, and slightly dorso-ventrally flattened. The fins are lateral, narrow and run along almost the entire mantle; the fin lobes are free posteriorly and are not connected at the midline.
The arms have two to four rows of suckers; the tentacles have four to eight, or more, longitudinal rows of suckers. The tentacles are retractile into pockets on ventro-lateral sides of the head. The funnel locking apparatus is curved to angular, not straight.
Size
Adult mantle length 20-500 mm.
Depth range
Surface to 500 m; nektobenthic on continental shelf and upper slope.
World distribution
Temperate to tropical waters of Eurasia and Africa; absent from the Americas.
[After Lu et al. in Sweeney et al., 1992 ]
The following species of this family occur in the region:
Sepia elegans
Sepia officinalis
Sepia orbignyana
Sepiella japonica (reported rarely)