Cuttlefish Camouflage Is an Energy-Efficient Superpower

Researchers have found that cuttlefish's ability to change their color and texture at will is even more impressive than previously thought. Learn why -- and how technology might copy these abilities -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogel bomb here cuttlefish, these cephalopods, known for their
stunning ability to instantly change color and texture to blend
into their surroundings, have another newly discovered trick. Researchers have
found that these squidgy creatures can freeze their camouflage palette

(00:22):
and lock it in place for up to an hour
without any energy consuming input from their main nervous system.
That superpower allows them to hold their disguise for long
periods to avoid being detected and thus to avoid being eaten.
It also helps them snatch their own prey, as they
can remain essentially invisible as they lie in wait. The finding,
published in the journal I Science, not only reveals yet

(00:44):
another clever strategy of these ocean floor dwelling masters of disguise,
It also lends further guidance for engineers hoping to borrow
from the animal's tricks to develop new technologies, such as
maps that can spring into three dimensions and soft bodied
robots that could say around a human leg to provide support.
As with many discoveries, scientists stumbled upon this one nearly

(01:06):
by accident. The researchers were working at the Marine Biological
Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. They were trying to trace
how the cuttlefish's nervous system directs its skin to transform
its three D texture within seconds to blend into the
background of say kelp or a rock. When they sliced
through one of the two main nerves that runs along
the side of a cuttlefish, they expected the animal would

(01:27):
lose its camouflage on the corresponding side of that nerve,
but instead, the three dimensional texture provided by nodes on
the skin of the cuttlefish, called papela, stayed intact. We
spoke with Trevor Wardill, co author of the study and
a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. He said, it
was really quite surprising. In fact, when we first saw it. Generally,
when you cut input to a muscle, it just relaxes

(01:49):
and that's the end of it. We thought we did
something wrong, but repeat takes of the procedures showed the
phenomenon was no fluke. The animals, by the way, we're
not killed by the procedure and we're a to continue
swimming and feeding in a tank at the MBL facility,
the team's finding is the first time this kind of
lock or catch muscle, as it's known, has been detected
in any cephalopod. Wardell says they believe it's similar to

(02:13):
a kind of locking mechanism used by clams and muscles
to seal shut without expending energy. For the cuttlefish, which,
as any wild animal, relies on every calorie it consumes
to survive, having a way to maintain its disguise without
constantly pumping out energy is an ingenious survival strategy. Like
an e reader that only uses energy when you turn
the page, you expend way less energy than with a

(02:34):
tablet that's constantly refreshing its screen. The researchers suspect that squid,
which hang out in the ocean's upper water columns, may
have the same ability. Squid don't transform the texture of
their skin as cuttlefish do, likely because the increase in
drag would make such rough surfaces more of a liability
than an advantage, but these cephalopods blend in by shifting

(02:54):
the ear doesn't quality of their skin, effectively changing how
the sun's light reflects off of their bodies. Observations have
shown that squid even use their eardescence to hypnotize prey
such as crabs in their sites. In investigating the cuttlefish's neurotransmitters,
they found striking similarities to neural circuits used by squid
to manipulate their eridescence, so they suspect squid may have

(03:16):
a similar ability to lock in a certain air doescn
to look. Wardell said, the same nerve controls appeared to
control papela in cuttlefish and aridescence in squid. We suspect
they must have a common ancestor for this control system,
but the jury is still out. Word that scientists have
uncovered yet another neat cephalopod trick is exciting news to
people like James Pickle, and assistant professor in the Department

(03:39):
of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pickle's research group recently borrowed from previous studies on the
cephalopods to mimic the cuttlefish's quick changing textural camouflage in
synthetic form using silicon and fiber mesh rings. He envisions
building on the cuttlefish's dynamic texture changing ability to generate
a GPS map that could lie flat in a vehicle

(04:02):
and then, upon command, spring into three dimensions to offer
a vivid, fully contoured view of the driver's route. Pickle
also predicts endless medical applications that could borrow from the cephalopod,
including soft robots that could instantly bend and conform to
mold around a patient's injury, or even envelope and support
a beating heart. To accomplish those visions, Pickle foreseas taking

(04:23):
inspiration and guidance from the cuttlefish and then advancing it.
He conceives, for example, of developing individual artificial papale that
could not only be activated or deactivated to match a surrounding,
but also be prompted to take on a specific shape
to create a surface that's even more fine tuned. The
latest research on the cuttle fish was funded by the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research. War Dale points out

(04:46):
that the military's interest in the animals goes beyond camouflage.
He said, they're also interested because of material science. You
can imagine you can take a very flat structure and
by activating it form a three dimensional shape. That ability
could be really helpful if you to transport a structure
flat to a location and then expanded out. Pickle said
nature has already begun the design process, so we don't

(05:08):
have to start at zero, but ultimately we want to
go beyond what even these amazing animals can do. Today's
episode was written by Amanda Onion and produced by Tristan McNeil.
For more on this and lots of other animal topics,
visit our home planet to stuff works dot com