The Distribution of Gas and Liquid within the Cuttlebone

Extract

The newest chamber of a cuttlebone is always incomplete and full of a watery solution. This contains sodium and potassium in concentrations close to those of sea water.

The second newest chamber contains a gas space and sometimes contains liquid. This liquid is rarely localized at the siphuncular end of the chamber. It is not certain that liquid is initially extracted through the siphuncular wall of the chamber, although this is possible.

When liquid is pumped out of a newly formed chamber the salt which it initially contains is not left behind, either free or bound into the structure of the bone.

The 3rd to about the 10th newest chambers usually contain no visible liquid. But their siphuncular walls are permeable to liquid and liquid does enter these chambers when the cuttlebone becomes very dense.

At cuttlebone densities around 0·6, i.e. close to values which will make the cuttlefish neutrally buoyant, the older and more posterior chambers are almost full of liquid. This liquid can, however, be pumped out. When a cuttlebone has a density around 0·5 very little liquid can be seen in any of its chambers.

The pressure of gas within a newly ‘pumped out’ chamber is very low, but by the time a chamber has become the ninth newest the pressure of gas is close to the average value for the whole cuttlebone, i.e. about 0·8 atm.

The low pressure of gas found in the newest chambers is explained by the slowness with which gas diffuses into a space created by the active removal of liquid.