Flamboyant Cuttlefish Keep a Low Profile in the Wild | Science News
Don’t let the name fool you. Flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) look anything but flashy most of the time. Images and videos of the marine mollusks flashing bright purple and yellow hues litter the internet, perpetuating the idea that these animals are constantly putting on a show in the wild. But a new study proves just the opposite: Flamboyant cuttlefish spend most of their time looking like a pile of mud.
“These animals have superb camouflage,” says Roger Hanlon, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Specialized cells and structures in their skin allow the animals to instantly morph into ostentatious patterns, as well as blend in.
Keen to see how the animals balanced flamboyance with camo in nature, Hanlon organized two field studies in a cuttlefish habitat off the coast of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Citizen scientist divers scouted the Lembeh Strait area over eight days in 2002 and again for 11 days in 2019, being careful to eavesdrop without disturbing the animals. Video footage collected by the team now reveals intimate details of the species’ mating practices and defensive behaviors as well as what the animals do in their downtime. Hanlon and Gwendolyn McManus, a marine biology student at Northeastern University in Boston, describe the results in the August Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. Read more of the article here.
Source: Flamboyant cuttlefish keep a low profile in the wild | Science News