Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

Chameleons of the sea

Now you sea them, now you don't.

Cuttlefish are sometimes called chameleons of the sea, and for good reason. Like many of their cephalopod cousins – octopuses and squids – they are masters of camouflage, able to almost instantly change the coloring of their skins.

This is especially amazing since cuttlefish are colorblind.

Scientists have known for awhile that cuttlefish cannot detect color, but new research by Lydia Mathger and colleagues at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., helps explain how they manage to blend in.

The researchers discovered that cuttlefish react to visual differences in contrast in their surrounding environment. In their most common habitat – coral and temperate rock reefs around the world – they assume a sort of mottled appearance. But in Mathger's experiments, they were able to roughly mimic underlying checkerboard patterns as well.

Contrast perception, however, doesn't explain how cuttlefish and their relatives are able to respond so quickly and broadly to visual clues. Some species can show 30 to 50 different appearances. More experiments are planned to assess how cuttlefish perceive such things as the edges of objects, brightness and size. This assumes, of course, that the scientists can find cuttlefish in the tank.

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