344 



Bulletin Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



Text figure 22. — Sepia offtcionalis Linne, ventral view of gladius, X 0.35. 



Material examined : One specimen from Naples, Italy. 



Technical description: This, the largest of the Mediter- 

 ranean Sepiae, attains a length of 14 to 16 inches. The present 

 specimen, from Naples, has a total length of 15 inches. The body 

 is smooth, depressed, wide-oval. The free mantle margin is pro- 

 duced to a wide blunt triangular point in the median dorsal area, 

 on either side of which it is widely concave ; on the ventral free 

 mantle margin there is a wide excavation below the siphon. The 

 fins are attached about 5 millimeters behind the anterior margin 

 and extend the entire length of the lateral margin, gradually in- 

 creasing in width posteriorly, attaining the maximum width about 

 the posterior three-fourths of the body length. The exposed por- 

 tion of the siphon is fairly large and extends almost to the base 

 of the fourth pair of arms ; it is muscular, conic, with a moderately 

 wide aperture ; the head is distinctly longer than wide, depressed, 

 broad, with the orbits large. 



The sessile arms are short, strong, unequal, decreasing in 

 length in the order 4, 3, 2, 1. The suckers of the sessile arms are 

 set in four series ; the corneous ring of a cupule is smooth, devoid 

 of denticles. 



The tentacular arms are long, elastic, with about the distal fifth 

 supporting the club, which is large, of oval contour and bears a 

 ribbon-like web along the free lateral margin. The suckers are 

 grouped in six alternating series, with about 4 to 6 cups in the 

 central area enlarged, the other cups being smaller and closely 

 crowded. The horny ring of these larger cups is smooth, while 

 the ring of the smaller cups is dentate. 



The shell is oblong-ovate, 2.6 times as long as wide, broadly 

 lanceolate, devoid of cartilaginous margin, hard, white, faintly 

 tinged with colour and closely corrugated dorsally, with a faint 



