Mass stranding of cuttlebones of Sepia orbignyana Férussac, 1826, on Texel, the Netherlands, in July 2002 (Cephalopoda, Decapoda, Sepiidae)

A mass stranding of hundreds of cuttlebones of Sepia orbignyana occurred on the coast of Texel, the Netherlands, in July 2002. Up to now usually only low numbers were found on the Dutch coast. S. orbignyana does not live in the North Sea. Accompanying drift material such as thong weed Himanthalia elongata indicates a SW origin from the Channel and skeletons of the By-the-wind-sailor Velella velella (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Chondrophora) may even indicate an origin from as far as the Bay of Biscay. Drift-bottle experiments in the past have indicated that it takes at least one to two months to drift from the entrance of the Channel near Plymouth to the Dutch coast. A large proportion of the cuttlebones (65%) showed peck marks by fulmars and 55% had scratch marks probably also made by birds supporting a drifting time of this length.