The southern shortfin cuttlefish is a type of elongated, small, slim cuttlefish, a cephalopod related to the squid and usually cooked whole. In the main the mantle length of the male is up to 270 mm (10½”) and of the female 200 mm (8”). It is widely distributed in the Mediterranean, from the south of Britain to Namibia in the eastern Atlantic, and in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Florida in the western Atlantic.