cuttlefish
dr. dolittle | June 22, 2015 A camouflaged giant Australian cuttlefish. Image from LiveScience; Credit: Sarah Zylinski, Duke University
Could you imagine artificial skin capable of quickly changing colors to communicate or hide? Scientists have been testing ways to mimic the skin of cephalopods like squid, octopuses and cuttlefish, which have a remarkable ability to change skin color and sometimes even texture to mimic their surroundings. Cephalopods have networks of chromatophores, which are cells within their skin that contain a pigment sac. Expanding these cells with the aid of muscles, makes the pigment expand…
gregladen | October 11, 2014Last June (and May and July and part of August) we had a lot of precipitation in Minnesota. This caused lake levels to rise modestly. One lake, which is large enough to have meaningful waves, has older settlement along it so lots of cabins, boat houses, and such are right on the shoreline. With the lake level up, waves threatened the material possessions of rich white people, so naturally something had to be done. A No-Wake Rule was put into effect.
A No-Wake Rule means the oversized fishing boats and smallish cabin cruisers that normally ply this large exurban lake need to all go at 5 m…
laelaps | June 4, 2010
The "common cuttle-fish." From Mysteries of the Ocean.
About three decades before On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection would forever change biological science, the aspiring young naturalists Pierre-Stanislas Meyranx and Laurencet submitted a paper on mollusks to France's prestigious Academie des Sciences. For weeks they waited for a patron from within the scientific elite to recognize their work, but no response came. Ultimately they decided to take the more direct route of having the paper examined by a commission, and in 1830 the naturalists Pierre-Andre Latreille and…
edyong | February 7, 2009A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a dolphin that has mastered the trick of killing cuttlefish and elaborately preparing them for a meal. It was a great story that highlighted just how intelligent and versatile dolphins can be, but it was a bit of a bittersweet report. The cuttlefish didn't exactly come out of it very well, which is a shame - they are intelligent creatures in their own right, every bit as fascinating as dolphins are. So it's with great glee that I report a new study that should help to restore the cuttlefish's credibility and cement its position as one of the cleverer…
edyong | January 25, 2009Cuttlefish are intelligent animals that can hide from predators by changing colour and texture, and squirting out a smokescreen of black ink. But amazing though cuttlefish are, their defences mean nothing against one of the most intelligent hunters in the ocean - the bottlenose dolphin.
Julian Finn, Tom Tregenza and Mark Norman (the trio who first described the amazing mimic octopus) have discovered a single female bottlenose, who has developed a way of hunting cuttlefish. Not only does she successfully capture them, but she has learned how to prepare them for the perfect meal, with all the…
zooillogix | September 19, 2008Marine biologists off the coast of Australia have discovered what they believe to be hundreds of new species on the Great Barrier and Ningaloo Reefs. The project is part of CReefs, a global census of coral reefs, which is in turn part of the larger Census of Marine Life, an ongoing effort to catalog all ocean life.
The researchers were kind enough to take a number of incredible photos, many of which we share below. It's not clear to me which of these are newly identified organisms and which are just pretty critters they encountered along the way, but many of them are spectacular regardless…
grrlscientist | July 1, 2008tags: Underwater Astonishments, marine biology, evolution, streaming video
David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a shape-shifting cuttlefish, a pair of fighting squid, and a mesmerizing gallery of bioluminescent fish that light up the blackest depths of the ocean. He focuses on the work of two scientists: Edith Widder at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, and Roger Hanlon at the Marine Biological Lab. [6:01]
bleimanb | June 6, 2008New research published in the journal, Animal Behavior, has shed light on an extraordinary adaptation of unborn cuttlefish: the ability to visualize prey while they are still in their egg casings. Even more astonishing is the findings that embryonic cuttlefish who were exposed to crabs preferred crabs as their meal-of-choice after they hatched. This is the first known evidence of embryonic visual learning by any creature in the world.
Learning to kill...
Cuttlefish- a close relative of squids and octopuses -are known for...
...their ability to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings by…
grrlscientist | January 20, 2008tags: mollusc, photography, subway art, art, Boston, Logan Airport
The photographer writes: I love the pictures you have posted of the subway mosaics. Thought you might be interested to know that other forms of transportation (Boston's Logan Airport) have attempted their own such art. Well, not really -- these are not elaborate terrazzos, but simply floor tile designs -- but they are still fun. There are sea stars, eels, angler fish, whales, seahorses, and of course octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish.
Image: Digital Cuttlefish [wallpaper size].
Your pictures I truly adore
So, for your…
laelaps | October 8, 2007
Close-up of a cuttlefish, taken at Disney's "Living Seas" exhibit
The holidays seem to be coming earlier every year, and today is International Cephalopod Awareness Day! Indeed, it's always a good thing to be aware of cephalopods (it's 12 PM, do you know where Architeuthis is?), especially since the consequences of not being so can be rather painful, or at least very inky. Even if you can't celebrate the day via your own blog, why not pick up some cephalopod-based literature? I'm going with Hanlon & Messenger's Cephalopod Behaviour, but whatever you do, be sure to see PZ's collection…