After the heavy seas in October a cluster of white, leathery egg capsules were washed ashore with the seaweed to which they had been fastened. Corrigans Beach at Batemans Bay was the last resting place for the babies of at least one squid.

The capsules were about the size of a woman’s little finger and each contained a few eggs. Some of the eggs inside had hatched and the baby molluscs, although similar to the adults in form, were smaller than a grain of rice.

One of the most common species of squid in our coastal bays is the southern calamari squid (Sepioteuthis australis). Like all squid it has eight shorter arms around the mouth and two longer ones with club-like ends, all equipped with suckers.

The body or mantle of the calamari can grow to 50cm long. It and the arms contain special cells with coloured pigments, called chromatophores. They come in up to five different colours and can be rapidly enlarged or reduced to change the colour and pattern of the animal. There is also a layer of reflective tissue that gives the animal an iridescent green or blue sheen.

Squid are fast-moving hunters. They catch and hold fish with their arms and kill the prey by biting through its spinal chord with a parrot-like beak. Pieces of the prey are then rasped into the mouth with a file-like tongue, the radula.

Snorkelers often see southern calamari hanging around in the water in small schools of up to ten animals, all closely watching the gawping humans. They keep their distance by undulating the pair of diamond-shaped fins at the sides of their bodies but if they feel threatened they demonstrate how fast they can move by jet propulsion.

Southern calamari are mature when half size, about one year old. They mate head to head like octopuses and cuttlefish, the male transferring a packet of sperm to the female’s mantle cavity. The female spawns at night, attaching the egg capsules in clusters on the sea bed, to the base of seaweeds or other attached organisms. Sometimes the females have communal egg laying areas because large areas of a bay can be covered in the capsules.

A less common species of our shallow coastal areas and seagrass beds is the small luminous bay squid (Loliolus noctiluca). It only grows to 8 cm and is squat in shape with large dark spots and large triangular fins at the rear. Luminescent bacteria in a pair of organs inside the mantle cavity give a light which helps hide the animal when seen from below against the brighter surface.