Description: Thallus erect and flattened to 40 cms long. Fan-shaped with linear blades deeply dissected, irregular dichotomous irregular branching to a maximum of 12 mm wide. Fringed with tufts of filaments at the apicies.

Habitat: Epilithic or epizoic in the sublittoral to 10 m.

Distribution: Widespread in the British Isles. Mediterranean, Azores, Portugal, Atlantic coasts of Spain and France, Denmark, Baltic Sea, Sweden Norway and the Faroes. Further afield: the Canary Islands, Red Sea, West Africa, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and regions of the Indo-Pacific.

Similar Species: Dictyota dichotoma is similar but without fringed tufts of filaments and Taonia atomaria is split into wedge-shaped sections.

Key Identification Features:

• Linear blades deeply split with ends appearing frayed.

Distribution Map from NBN: Cutleria multifida at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Cutleria multifida at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Cutleria multifida

WoRMS: Cutleria multifida at World Register of Marine Species. Accepted name: Cutleria multifida (Turner) Greville, 1830. AphiaID: 145297.

Classification: Biota; Chromista; Harosa; Heterokonta; Ochrophyta; Phaeophyceae; Fucophycidae; Tilopteridales; Cutleriaceae; Cutleria