CSI – Cuttlefish Sepion Investigation: overview of cuttlebones found on Aotearoa New Zealand shores and analysis of predation and scavenging marks

Despite the absence of cuttlefish in Aotearoa New Zealand waters, cuttlebones and cuttlebone fragments have been reported and collected in the country since the early twentieth century. Not all could be reliably identified. As such, here we review all cuttlebone material collected from New Zealand shores available in natural history collections, as well as literature and online records. Species were identified, through morphological features and, for the first time, DNA barcoding, as: the Australian endemic Sepia apama Gray, 1849 (and possibly S. grahami A. Reid, 2001) and the widely distributed Indo-Pacific S. latimanus Quoy & Gaimard, 1832. In addition, the predation/scavenging marks (praedichnia) left on the cuttlebones by other organisms are assigned to four major types and attributed to albatrosses, sharks, and dolphins. The successful extraction of DNA from cuttlebones has potential future applications, including the examination of type specimens, since species were described based only on cuttlebones.