Needle cuttlefish (Sepia aculeata) occurs in the Indo-Pacific: India (Arabian Sea north to off the Gulf of Kutch) to the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand, South China Sea, Taiwan Province of China, East China Sea, Indonesia and possibly the Timor Sea (Jereb and Roper 2005). The stock structure of needle cuttlefish in Kerala is not known. 

Needle cuttlefish is a demersal, neritic species that occurs to 60 m depth. Along the Indian coasts maturing and mature animals are present throughout the year, which indicates a prolonged spawning and breeding season; activity peaks occur from January to April and in April, July, and December in the southwestern waters, off Cochin (Jereb and Roper 2005). The major gear exploiting cephalopods, including this species,  was trawl (70-80%), while other artisanal gears such as beach seines, hand jigs, lines, and gillnets were in use, particularly in the southern district of Thriruvananthapuram (Venkatesan et al. 2017).