Een zeekat (Sepia officinalis) aangespoeld langs Texels waddenkust

The common cuttlefish migrates in early summer from the Channel to the North Sea. They reproduce here and many adults die after reproduction. They are not often found stranded on the Dutch coast and certainly after around 1965 strandings became rare. On 4 may 2008, the specimen pictured here was found along the Wadden Sea coast of Texel Island. Cuttlebones are much more common stranded on the Dutch coast, but also they appear to have diminished in the last decades together with the common cuttlefish itself and apparently related to the introduction of fishery with the beamtrawl in the North Sea around 1965.