November 2, 2010 • 25 mins
Would you like a pet that can change its appearance and create decoys from ink? What if it also shot through the water via jet propulsion? Then the cuttlefish is the pet for you. Listen in as Robert and Allison take a closer look at the cuttlefish.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison an't like the science center at how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
at how stuff works dot com. And you know, today
(00:24):
we are talking about like what is probably the most
boss animal in the entire ocean. We're talking about and
also the cutest, the cuttlefish. The cutest. I would like
to cuttle up to cuttleish, wouldn't you. Yeah, I mean
they look kind of like, uh, there's something kind of
like kitten like about them when you see him at
the aquarium. Indeed, I do think kittens when I see
cuttle fish. Yeah, Like you know how like like a
cattle can of like ball up and be like a
(00:46):
little you know, a little handful of cat. Well, it's
like like cuttlefish kind of have that look going on
most of the time, you know, and they're they're hovering
around and their little their little tanks and and you know,
changing colors wildly. It's it's amazing stuff. Yeah, we get
interested in cuttlefish back when we did life um in
the beginning of two thousand ten, we did all sorts
(01:06):
of interesting articles on cuttlefish, and one of them was
this really amazing sequence in Life in which the videographers
had a pretty tough task. Yeah. Yeah, they were trying
to you know, they have all this footage that they
shot on the ocean floor and and it's not you know,
when you go down on to the ocean Florida to
shoot something like cuttlefish mating, it's not just like, all right,
(01:27):
we're gonna turn on the camera and then when we
turn it off we have our footage. No, it's like
shooting stuff here and there, and you know, and it's
it's all out of sequence, and it's like shooting a movie, right,
And then you get it back, you hand it over
to the editors and they start trying to piece it together.
And there's a pretty tricky factor here those because they're
changing colors. It's like one second, this uh, this cuttlefish
(01:47):
is small and white, and then it's like it's changed
it's texture, it's dark purple, and it's over here, you know,
and it's all happening in the space of seconds. So yes,
imagine if you were like the you know, the editor
on a film, and you were you had shot like
Tom Cruise. But Tom Cruise kept like morphing into other people,
you know, and you're like, oh, well his range isn't
(02:08):
that soul. But occasionally he does morph into another person,
you know, and yeah on Oprah or you know, interview
with the Vampire or something. You know, it's like, but
but what all that was happening, you know, in the
space of like one shoot. Yeah, So cuttlefish can be
hard to track, much like Tom Cruise. Yeah, they're amazing animals. Yeah,
there are a hundred and twenty species of cuttlefish. And uh,
(02:30):
I'm assuming a lot of people out there have seen
this guy. Either you've seen him in uh or her
in on a YouTube video, or you've you've you watched
Life you know especially yeah, or you've seen him at
seen him at a various aquarium. So like here in Atlanta,
I know we've had them, Um for different periods. You
were seeing aquarium. You're saying you saw him in Monterey, right, Yes, Um,
(02:53):
my wife and I went out to California recently and
we went to the Monterey Aquarium and we had a
gotta we we gotta special treat when we popped in there,
because the cuttlefish were actually breeding and depositing eggs. So
it was like super magical. We almost skipped over it.
We're like, oh, cuttlefish, Well, we're about ready to go.
You know, we've seen cuttlefish before, but we ain't even
(03:14):
gett ended up getting sucked in by you know, the
colors and the cuteness and lo and behold they were breeding.
It was it was awesome. They also have some really
cool cuttlefish up at the aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Good
to know, Good to know. Um eyes, Their eyes are amazing, right, yeah, yeah,
there they have. They're highly developed, like like a lot
of the cephalopods, and they have these W shaped pupils.
(03:38):
So the interesting thing is they're color blind, but like
a lot of animals that live on the depths of
the ocean floor, they're great with low light. So when
you think about it, humans are you know, we have
pretty good vision and we can do cool things like
we shape our lenses to zoom in. But the cuttlefish
can actually reshape its entire eye, which I found fascinating. Yeah,
pretty cool. Uh. And then of course tentacles or arms.
(04:01):
Tentacles and arms, that's a major feature. They tend to
have some sort of um, you know, slipped together. It
kind of look you know, it's kind of almost like
a It reminds me of like a hairstyle or something.
You know. They have them slipped together almost into like
a beak shape, you know, very aerodynamic and I'm thinking mohawk.
But yeah, it's but they have they have eight sucker
(04:21):
lined arms and two tentacles. Those are the longer deals
to grass prey or or to grasp other cuttlefish, you know,
depending on what the altercations. Yeah. Yeah, it's also used
in breeding. Yeah, and they have a beak, which apparently
freaks Josh Clark out for some reason. Yeah. They did
recently did a podcast on octopi and uh and apparently
(04:42):
Josh was just freaking out over the fact that cephalopods
have have little beaks. We don't. I mean, I can
kind of understand Josh's concerned on this one. I tend
to think of beaks being associated mostly with land animals.
Land they ye like, so it's not creepy if a
bird has a beak, but if if a cephalopod has
a beak, and it's crazy. Yeah, I think it's My
(05:04):
wife finds like beaks and birds to be really creepy,
like especially big big birds, not big bird, but like
large birds. Like you know, if you got to like
to our Thomas a little restaurant here in the line
where they have cages outside with like two cans and stuff. Um,
like that freaks her out because I think all she
can think about her like like them sort of like
pecking your eyes with their big beaks or or you know,
(05:25):
their little black tongues. Yeah, there's a freaky scenario. Birds are. Yeah,
and then they also have a little little hover skirt
kind of a fin. Yeah. The fin is really awesome
because it's like like a single kind of wavery fin
thing that like curves all the way around there. They're
they're they're behind and uh and it does it just
kind of like undulates, you know, and uh and they
(05:48):
get a massive amount of maneuverability with that. They can
pretty much move in any direction, you know, at the
drop of a hat. It's it's it's like, you know,
you really get a hovering sensation watching them. They're just
kind of like drifting or just hanging in one spot. Yeah,
that is until they fire up the jet propulsion. Oh yeah,
and that happens when they suck the water into their
(06:08):
mantle cavity and then they force it back out through
the funnel. And that's just the opening located right under
the head. So they do this when they want to
change direction speed and it kind of swivels the funnel
or it narrows it to intensify that blast of water. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. They're gonna awesome that they have jet propulsion.
It is. Don't you wish you had jet propulsion? Um?
(06:29):
Not really? You know, you see your editor coming towards
you with a red lined draft of a paper you
work so hard on. You know what, I don't feel
like dealing with us. You turn on the jet propulsion,
you high tail it at Well, okay, I would go
for the jet propulsion provided I had another defense mechanism.
That the cuttlefish has um And again this is another
thing it squares it shares with certain squid, and that
(06:50):
that is that it has an ink sac. All right, um,
but but here's the thing that's really amazing. All right,
everybody knows that like an ink sac. Okay, you know,
the a squid or a cuttlefish can create like a
smoke screen of ink and then fleet the scene all right,
that's that's nothing compared to their The secondary use of
the of the ink, and that is to create what
is called a pseudomorph. It means false form, and it's
(07:14):
basically bubbles of ink surrounded by mucus, and it's they
shoot it out and it kind of occupies the same
amount of space that the squid with that the that
the cuttlefish would be in. But here's the deal. Right
before they shoot it out, they turn really dark, so
that the cuttlefish turns really dark, shoots out this black
mass that's roughly the same shape and right right, and
(07:35):
then the cuttlefish turns like white and then uses the
jets to speed away. So then the press so the
predator sees this dark cuttlefish jump, you know, speeds in
to eat it, and then the couple fish you know,
cuts out, and then the attacker ends up biting into
this big blob of ink and mucus. Yeah. So if
I had that defense, and you were to bring me
(07:55):
some paper that I didn't want to deal with at
the moment, I would just you know, I hit the inks,
drop a pseudomorphic, and then get out of there, and
then you'd be you'd be having this conversation about the
about this latest draft, with this big pile of inc communcus. Also,
my sense of smell would be temporarily parallels because the
inc can contain dopamine and a precursor to dopamine. Some
(08:19):
I'm sitting there confused and I have no sense of smell,
and Robert has gone, He's fled the scene. See these
the couple wish have it figured out. These are just
amazing creatures and we're not even we're not even halfway
through without everything that's that's cool about them. I mean,
this is just like it's like if you went to
a car dealership to buy um, like an animal, or
you know, your local cephalopod dealership, and you're like, all right,
show me something that's just just has it, just has
(08:41):
all the features. They would pull out the cuttlefish because
these guys just have everything. Well, not to mention their brain, right, Yeah,
these are these are pretty uh smart creatures, pretty braining creatures. Yeah.
They have one of the largest brain to body size
ratios of any invertebrate out there, and uh, as active predators,
they really need that brain to kind of help them
(09:01):
react to their environment and you know, even learn some
new tricks. Yeah, and it kind of comes down to
like they need that big brain because again, they have
a lot of really cool features. It's kind of like
Stephen Hawkings wheelchair, Um, which I'm so curious to see
where you're going with. Well, this is a fact that
I I meant to mention in our Stephen Hawking podcast
and it's just going to try to work it into
(09:21):
the tuttle Well no, it just was not a conscious effort.
But but now Stephen Hawkings wheelchair has like all this
like crazy computer stuff on it, you know, because he
depends on it to comm know, to communicate and he's
just constantly plugged in. Yeah, wait, what are you saying
that IBM send some spanking new fantasy periodically. Yeah. Someone
may have to correct me on that, but I'll believe
(09:42):
fits right. He gets the latest tech, it's my understanding,
But he also needs the equivalent of a car battery
to run it all, whereas like a normally you know, um,
you know, a powered wheelchair would have a less robust battery.
So the cuttle fish is in a position where it
has a lot of really awesome features and it needs
a high you know caliber brain. Tip to run it all.
(10:02):
It's not reading books or anything, but it's so you
think it's supercharged when it comes to things like camouflage.
They never they don't have a cuttle fish on record
of reading Tolster or anything like that. Huh. They might
they might be doing some audio books. You know. You
hear these voices on the Adego books. You never really
see these guys that could it could be a cuttlefish. Yeah.
And and the brain is also really important in directing
(10:24):
the pigment producing cells and and directing its camouflage activities
Tolstoy camouflage, you know. Yeah, before we get into the
camouflage hardcore though, just a couple other quick anatomical facts. Um,
they're obviously they're really cute animals. And they have three hearts,
which may or may not be related to the cuteness,
(10:45):
but it is more likely related to the fact that
they need two hearts to pump their blue green blood
to the gills and one to circulate oxygenated blood to
the rest of the body. They can't hear them, I really,
but they do detect sound in the form of pressure waves,
and how do they do that? By the way, have
some handy lateral at the dermal lines, they feel like
(11:07):
the wave pressure. I think that's why I thought, yeah, yeah,
I think that's the way it works. Um and again
before we we're getting to the camouflage. But just a
couple of other interesting things about them. Size. When it
comes to the size of these cuttlefish, the smallest species
grows to be about three inches long, and I believe
these are typically like occupied like sort of tidal areas,
(11:29):
like tidal pool areas. And then the largest of the species,
which is called the broad club cuttlefish, which sounds like
a real thug of a of a sea creature. Yeah,
the club, I think is what gives you that broad
club cuttle fit like it takes the you know, we
think of cuttle we think of you know, like you know,
like kittens spooning each other something. But but but and
(11:51):
so you think of that when you when you elliot,
you know, I know it's not the same just to
clare yet it's a different word. But then when you
throw broad club on there, it's like they just totally
throws it out and those suckers can get too, to
be like five and a half feet long. And then
the the common cuttle fish is more than the three
foot range. I'm also excited that there is a species
(12:13):
known as um Feefer's flamboyant cuttlefish. Those are the guys
that are able to um kind of walk along the ocean.
They're apparently the only type of cuttle fish that kind
of walks along. And then they're really cool looking. They're
very I don't know the pictures I saw, they were
kind of a dark red kind of thing, but um,
you know, they're cuttlefish, so I imagine that changes depending on,
(12:34):
you know, seasonal fashions. Yeah, they're fickle, those cuttlefish. So
let's talk a little bit of about their camouflage. Okay, Yeah,
they can, like we said, they can change from like
white to purple and a flash. Uh. They appear to
sort of pulsate with light, you know, the very magical
looking iridescent, and then the very um surface of their
(12:56):
skin can sort of change, like it'll look look, you know,
just soft to the touch at one at one point,
and then it'll kind of creakle into this, uh, this
rocky surface and you know, just again it happened so subtly,
like if you're watching them in a tank, it's it's
it's like a trick of the eye almost because because
I mean they'll do like a quick flash here and
there where those are Suddenly there are different colors, Suddenly
(13:17):
their texture changes. But a lot of it's just really subtle,
like a mood ring or something. Yeah, and all that
awesome camouflage action is controlled by the chromatophores, which we
kind of just mentioned, and those are just the pigment cells,
and a heck of a lot of pigment cells too.
We're talking ten million, as many as ten million, so
if you think about that per square millimeter, that's roughly
two square millimeter, so that's a lot. That's a lot.
(13:40):
And they have these muscles that are attached to the
chromatophores and they tighten and relax to control which color
is displayed. Cool, and then the changeable texture that I
was talking about, that's due to bundles of muscles that
that are that are also under the skin that changed
the surface. So that's that's another component of the disguise.
(14:01):
You know, I feel like if I were in a
bad mood, I would definitely want that spiky surface, you know,
stay away from me. I'm feeling kind of spiky. Yeah,
I could I can see that being the case. It
would be like imagine, well, let's let's get through the
next component and then we'll imagine what life would be
like if we had these abilities. Because they also have
these reflecting plates. Um underneath, yeah, underneath the chromatophors, and
(14:25):
that's the where you get that, like I said, that
irridescent reflection kind of thing going on. Those have a vocabulary,
so all that color comes in handy to communicate. You're
not necessarily highly social, but they are able to communicate
as many I think as forty different signals biologists have identified. Yeah,
they've they've identified like forty different you know, combinations of
(14:47):
color and texture and all that that seemed to mean
a certain thing in the cuplefish world and between cuttlefish. Um.
So you know, vocabulary is a nice comfy human term
we throw at it. But but yeah, forty different different signals.
For instance, UM display, zebra display. Have you ever seen
one do this? By the way, I've definitely seen photos
of it, but it seems like when I see him
(15:08):
in tanks. No, I think I think I have seen
a zebra display. Right, So, zebra display, you want to
watch out because that's basically communicating I'm a mail, I'm
ready to do get out. Yeah, it's like humans have
their I think all animals have their zebra displays. They
just what is the human zebra display? How do we display?
How do humans display anger? Well? I don't know. I
(15:28):
kind of see a zebra display on Marta sometimes, Like
sometimes you'll see like the dude that's kind of like
that's um, he'll kind of like he'll put it like
a small bag in the Marta seat next to him
and he kind of sits there was like kind of
a tough guy. Look, you know, it's it's silly in
this all body language and all, but it's kind of like,
I'm a dude, don't sit next to me. You know,
I'm tough. Don't mess with me kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah.
(15:49):
Or maybe you make eye contact for a second and
it kind of holds your glance and then you look around,
you look away real fast. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.
The stink ye if you will, I guess the stink
ey is more of uh like it's not really it's
a different thing. You guys, MS you should be in
the studio with us, because Robert just trying to do
the stink eye, which was kind of funny. But yeah,
imagine if though you like our our daily lives, I
(16:11):
mean we again we have body lane, which we have
our our our facial like micro expressions. But imagine like
were like super pronounced and we you know, we communicated
through flashes of color and and and weird textures and
and iridescent displays. It would be pretty pretty amazing. In fact,
there's a there's one group of researchers from Woods, yeah,
(16:33):
Woods Whole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts that are looking
into the possibility that that that that that that iridescent
display relates to this thing they call light polar polarization signaling.
That means that there's just there's like an entirely different
layer of communication. It's like a very subtle communication that
they're pulling off between each other based on the kind
(16:55):
of shimmering uh displays that you see go on and
with their skin. So we might be picking up the
obviously were display, but there's another signal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
do the subtext I guess, you know, to the cuttlefish subtext.
I like them. So one of the most interesting signs
that for aggression that they have is that the peace signal?
(17:16):
You're telling me about this? This is cool? So they
hold up the two uh fingers are arms. Yeah, they
hold up a couple of the arms, um and kind
of and it looks a lot like like right now,
I'm I'm holding up two fingers like I'm doing the
peace signal, um, the peace sign and uh. Apparently if
they're if they're in a situation where they're trying to
intimidate somebody, reward off something, if the colors don't work,
(17:38):
they'll raise those two uh, those two arms up. So
you'll have divers apparently that when they're diving down and
dealing with cuttlefish as a lark, they will they'll they'll
give the peace sign to the cuttlefish and the cuttlefish
will give the peace sign back. Though they're totally different meanings.
The you know, the the human diver is doing it,
you know, out of humor and out of a sense
(17:59):
of peace. He doesn't want to harm the cuttlefish. Generally,
I would out, and the cuttlefish is saying, stay the
heck away from me. Yeah, wellmo, I'm gonna blast you
with the pseudomorph if you don't watch out, buddy, I
love the pseudomorphos. That's amazing. People would probably be a
pretty good band name too. Let's talk about the mating though.
This is really where the cuttlefish shines. Yeah, this is
(18:21):
pretty pretty awesome. And there's a whole segment on life
that deals with this from the Underwater Creatures episode. And
it's kind of a gender bender, Yes, it is a
gender bender. Like it basically breaks down to in the
male In the world of male cuttlefish, you kind of
have two types of dudes. You have the big it's
kind of like you've ever seen those like the cartoons
(18:42):
of the old, like nineteen fifties type of things where
you have the wormy guy on the beach and he
goes out there with his girlfriend and then the big
muscle dude kicks sand on him. Well, that's that's the
same thing that's going on here. We have the big,
beefy cuttlefish that are out on the beach to pick
up a chick. And then there's the wormy dude that
you know, might have brought his his book, you know,
with him to read his his you know, sci fi
(19:04):
collection or something um. And so, so those are the
two guys out there vying for the for the females.
So when it comes down to muscle, there's gonna be
one winner, of course, right right, and that's going to
be the broad beefy guy. But that's not to say
that the female cuttlefish won't let the the more petite
(19:24):
male approach. And the petite male has to be really
careful about this because nobody wants to get beat up
cuttlefish style or in real life. Yeah they can really,
I've seen some images of them tearing it up down there,
and they can get pretty vicious in their their their fights.
So the smaller size cuttlefish will change its colors to
reflect the coloration of a female, yeah, you know, kind
of like make himself small and submissive posturing type, you know,
(19:47):
and it will get real close to the female, the
mate that it has identified, and that's how it wins
the battle. And that's really how the broad beefy guys
and the you know, smaller, petite, perhaps more intelligent gender
bender cuttlefish coexis. Yeah, and because it's like both both
variants of the cuttle fish are important for the survival
of the species. So yeah, you have the big the
(20:07):
big b female cuttlefish will be hanging out there with
the the the female it hopes to mate with, and
then it sees this other female. It thinks it's a
female coming over, and it's like, oh, that's great, maybe
i'll mate with that one next, not knowing that that
is a male coming over to totally steal his lady. Yeah,
the female is a smart one here, she's perpetuating the
broader genetic pool. Yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's also
(20:31):
important taken to account the way they mate. The male
uses the modified arm to transfer his genetic material into
the female's bogle area sounds yeah, and the part of
her mouth that stores the males uh spermatophors for use later.
Like she actually then takes the this kind of like
packaged prepackaged sperm and then puts it on the eggs later.
(20:55):
So you know, if she has like a little from
column A and a little from column B, then that's
great because she wand up having this mixed offspring that
will can be both you know, the smaller sleeker um
you know, stealthier dudes and the big tough ones. So yeah,
why limen your options, ladies. Yeah, and and then she'll
of course want to keep that protected, so she'll store
(21:16):
her eggs and you know, in rocks or in a
nice handy discarded shell or something like that. Yeah, and
and that's again like I've got we actually got to
see those, uh, those those eggs when we went tom
on Hoey. It was really really cool. Yeah. I also
advise going over to the Life site and we're in
discovery if you're at all interested in the cuttlefish, are
learning a little bit more about these guys in action,
because it really is amazing footage. And hats off to
(21:39):
the men and women who captured this on film because
again I cannot imagine how complicated it must have been
to sort out all the different characters and the cuttlefish drama.
Oh yeah, and the results are just completely splendid. Like
just definitely definitely check check it out if even if
you only check out like some some video on the site,
you know. Um. And and also on the site, we
(22:00):
have a whole bunch of articles that that that we
wrote and put together. Uh. Like for instance, I interviewed
Life producer Neil Lucas about this very scene, and he
was the one who told me the whole story about
the editing woes and uh, and he had a lot
of just you know, funny things to say about you know,
his experience with the Cuddle. That was a fun project.
Gual talked to a lot of cool BBC producers. Yeah,
(22:22):
that was a lot of fun. Got got to making
a lot of phone calls to the UK. Do you
want to move into a listener man, Yes, um, I
actually have a really cool one here and it's a
response to our to a recent episode we did about
(22:43):
Sniper's Military Snipers. So this comes from Gabriel in Chicago, Illinois.
He says, Hi, all, I just finished hearing the episode
on Snipers, and you should know that the sniper duel
versus Sniper Wolf referenced in the show actually happened in
Metal Gear Solid one. We're talking about video games here,
not to I must have said it was too And
(23:07):
speaking of which, that duel was recreated in Metal Gear
Solid four, where you were locked in Mortal Kombat with
crying Wolf while evading our soldiers in Blizzard conditions. The
other difference is that she can smell you. Coming. Definitely
give that game a try. It's excellent if you like
sniper duels and metal Gear. Uh, the one in in
(23:27):
Metal Gear solid three is in my opinion, the best
one um and he says actually nerd lecture aside. I
love this podcast, which is definitely one of my faiths.
I did have a question though, how do they calculate
how many calories food has? And how do they determine
how much activity it takes to burn one off? I
love the Gabriel is kind of a man of wide
ranging interests. Well, I feel like a lot of our
(23:49):
interest I mean a lot of our our listeners have
to be because you know, we're talking about snipers one day,
and then it's cuttlefish and then it's composting, so you know, yeah,
he's kind of a renaissance men. It's so anyway, Gabriel,
thank you for straightening me out on my metal gear.
Because play that game, Robert part back. I've got too
many games I have to play. It's just I'll never play.
(24:10):
So if you guys want to connect with us on
video games, cuddlefish or hey snipersh to send us an
email at science Stuff at how stuff first dot com
or look at up on Facebook. Yeah we're on Facebook
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on Twitter as lab stuff. That's all we got, guys,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
(24:35):
other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com. Want
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house stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison an't like the science center at how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
at how stuff works dot com. And you know, today
(00:24):
we are talking about like what is probably the most
boss animal in the entire ocean. We're talking about and
also the cutest, the cuttlefish. The cutest. I would like
to cuttle up to cuttleish, wouldn't you. Yeah, I mean
they look kind of like, uh, there's something kind of
like kitten like about them when you see him at
the aquarium. Indeed, I do think kittens when I see
cuttle fish. Yeah, Like you know how like like a
cattle can of like ball up and be like a
(00:46):
little you know, a little handful of cat. Well, it's
like like cuttlefish kind of have that look going on
most of the time, you know, and they're they're hovering
around and their little their little tanks and and you know,
changing colors wildly. It's it's amazing stuff. Yeah, we get
interested in cuttlefish back when we did life um in
the beginning of two thousand ten, we did all sorts
(01:06):
of interesting articles on cuttlefish, and one of them was
this really amazing sequence in Life in which the videographers
had a pretty tough task. Yeah. Yeah, they were trying
to you know, they have all this footage that they
shot on the ocean floor and and it's not you know,
when you go down on to the ocean Florida to
shoot something like cuttlefish mating, it's not just like, all right,
(01:27):
we're gonna turn on the camera and then when we
turn it off we have our footage. No, it's like
shooting stuff here and there, and you know, and it's
it's all out of sequence, and it's like shooting a movie, right,
And then you get it back, you hand it over
to the editors and they start trying to piece it together.
And there's a pretty tricky factor here those because they're
changing colors. It's like one second, this uh, this cuttlefish
(01:47):
is small and white, and then it's like it's changed
it's texture, it's dark purple, and it's over here, you know,
and it's all happening in the space of seconds. So yes,
imagine if you were like the you know, the editor
on a film, and you were you had shot like
Tom Cruise. But Tom Cruise kept like morphing into other people,
you know, and you're like, oh, well his range isn't
(02:08):
that soul. But occasionally he does morph into another person,
you know, and yeah on Oprah or you know, interview
with the Vampire or something. You know, it's like, but
but what all that was happening, you know, in the
space of like one shoot. Yeah, So cuttlefish can be
hard to track, much like Tom Cruise. Yeah, they're amazing animals. Yeah,
there are a hundred and twenty species of cuttlefish. And uh,
(02:30):
I'm assuming a lot of people out there have seen
this guy. Either you've seen him in uh or her
in on a YouTube video, or you've you've you watched
Life you know especially yeah, or you've seen him at
seen him at a various aquarium. So like here in Atlanta,
I know we've had them, Um for different periods. You
were seeing aquarium. You're saying you saw him in Monterey, right, Yes, Um,
(02:53):
my wife and I went out to California recently and
we went to the Monterey Aquarium and we had a
gotta we we gotta special treat when we popped in there,
because the cuttlefish were actually breeding and depositing eggs. So
it was like super magical. We almost skipped over it.
We're like, oh, cuttlefish, Well, we're about ready to go.
You know, we've seen cuttlefish before, but we ain't even
(03:14):
gett ended up getting sucked in by you know, the
colors and the cuteness and lo and behold they were breeding.
It was it was awesome. They also have some really
cool cuttlefish up at the aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Good
to know, Good to know. Um eyes, Their eyes are amazing, right, yeah, yeah,
there they have. They're highly developed, like like a lot
of the cephalopods, and they have these W shaped pupils.
(03:38):
So the interesting thing is they're color blind, but like
a lot of animals that live on the depths of
the ocean floor, they're great with low light. So when
you think about it, humans are you know, we have
pretty good vision and we can do cool things like
we shape our lenses to zoom in. But the cuttlefish
can actually reshape its entire eye, which I found fascinating. Yeah,
pretty cool. Uh. And then of course tentacles or arms.
(04:01):
Tentacles and arms, that's a major feature. They tend to
have some sort of um, you know, slipped together. It
kind of look you know, it's kind of almost like
a It reminds me of like a hairstyle or something.
You know. They have them slipped together almost into like
a beak shape, you know, very aerodynamic and I'm thinking mohawk.
But yeah, it's but they have they have eight sucker
(04:21):
lined arms and two tentacles. Those are the longer deals
to grass prey or or to grasp other cuttlefish, you know,
depending on what the altercations. Yeah. Yeah, it's also used
in breeding. Yeah, and they have a beak, which apparently
freaks Josh Clark out for some reason. Yeah. They did
recently did a podcast on octopi and uh and apparently
(04:42):
Josh was just freaking out over the fact that cephalopods
have have little beaks. We don't. I mean, I can
kind of understand Josh's concerned on this one. I tend
to think of beaks being associated mostly with land animals.
Land they ye like, so it's not creepy if a
bird has a beak, but if if a cephalopod has
a beak, and it's crazy. Yeah, I think it's My
(05:04):
wife finds like beaks and birds to be really creepy,
like especially big big birds, not big bird, but like
large birds. Like you know, if you got to like
to our Thomas a little restaurant here in the line
where they have cages outside with like two cans and stuff. Um,
like that freaks her out because I think all she
can think about her like like them sort of like
pecking your eyes with their big beaks or or you know,
(05:25):
their little black tongues. Yeah, there's a freaky scenario. Birds are. Yeah,
and then they also have a little little hover skirt
kind of a fin. Yeah. The fin is really awesome
because it's like like a single kind of wavery fin
thing that like curves all the way around there. They're
they're they're behind and uh and it does it just
kind of like undulates, you know, and uh and they
(05:48):
get a massive amount of maneuverability with that. They can
pretty much move in any direction, you know, at the
drop of a hat. It's it's it's like, you know,
you really get a hovering sensation watching them. They're just
kind of like drifting or just hanging in one spot. Yeah,
that is until they fire up the jet propulsion. Oh yeah,
and that happens when they suck the water into their
(06:08):
mantle cavity and then they force it back out through
the funnel. And that's just the opening located right under
the head. So they do this when they want to
change direction speed and it kind of swivels the funnel
or it narrows it to intensify that blast of water. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. They're gonna awesome that they have jet propulsion.
It is. Don't you wish you had jet propulsion? Um?
(06:29):
Not really? You know, you see your editor coming towards
you with a red lined draft of a paper you
work so hard on. You know what, I don't feel
like dealing with us. You turn on the jet propulsion,
you high tail it at Well, okay, I would go
for the jet propulsion provided I had another defense mechanism.
That the cuttlefish has um And again this is another
thing it squares it shares with certain squid, and that
(06:50):
that is that it has an ink sac. All right, um,
but but here's the thing that's really amazing. All right,
everybody knows that like an ink sac. Okay, you know,
the a squid or a cuttlefish can create like a
smoke screen of ink and then fleet the scene all right,
that's that's nothing compared to their The secondary use of
the of the ink, and that is to create what
is called a pseudomorph. It means false form, and it's
(07:14):
basically bubbles of ink surrounded by mucus, and it's they
shoot it out and it kind of occupies the same
amount of space that the squid with that the that
the cuttlefish would be in. But here's the deal. Right
before they shoot it out, they turn really dark, so
that the cuttlefish turns really dark, shoots out this black
mass that's roughly the same shape and right right, and
(07:35):
then the cuttlefish turns like white and then uses the
jets to speed away. So then the press so the
predator sees this dark cuttlefish jump, you know, speeds in
to eat it, and then the couple fish you know,
cuts out, and then the attacker ends up biting into
this big blob of ink and mucus. Yeah. So if
I had that defense, and you were to bring me
(07:55):
some paper that I didn't want to deal with at
the moment, I would just you know, I hit the inks,
drop a pseudomorphic, and then get out of there, and
then you'd be you'd be having this conversation about the
about this latest draft, with this big pile of inc communcus. Also,
my sense of smell would be temporarily parallels because the
inc can contain dopamine and a precursor to dopamine. Some
(08:19):
I'm sitting there confused and I have no sense of smell,
and Robert has gone, He's fled the scene. See these
the couple wish have it figured out. These are just
amazing creatures and we're not even we're not even halfway
through without everything that's that's cool about them. I mean,
this is just like it's like if you went to
a car dealership to buy um, like an animal, or
you know, your local cephalopod dealership, and you're like, all right,
show me something that's just just has it, just has
(08:41):
all the features. They would pull out the cuttlefish because
these guys just have everything. Well, not to mention their brain, right, Yeah,
these are these are pretty uh smart creatures, pretty braining creatures. Yeah.
They have one of the largest brain to body size
ratios of any invertebrate out there, and uh, as active predators,
they really need that brain to kind of help them
(09:01):
react to their environment and you know, even learn some
new tricks. Yeah, and it kind of comes down to
like they need that big brain because again, they have
a lot of really cool features. It's kind of like
Stephen Hawkings wheelchair, Um, which I'm so curious to see
where you're going with. Well, this is a fact that
I I meant to mention in our Stephen Hawking podcast
and it's just going to try to work it into
(09:21):
the tuttle Well no, it just was not a conscious effort.
But but now Stephen Hawkings wheelchair has like all this
like crazy computer stuff on it, you know, because he
depends on it to comm know, to communicate and he's
just constantly plugged in. Yeah, wait, what are you saying
that IBM send some spanking new fantasy periodically. Yeah. Someone
may have to correct me on that, but I'll believe
(09:42):
fits right. He gets the latest tech, it's my understanding,
But he also needs the equivalent of a car battery
to run it all, whereas like a normally you know, um,
you know, a powered wheelchair would have a less robust battery.
So the cuttle fish is in a position where it
has a lot of really awesome features and it needs
a high you know caliber brain. Tip to run it all.
(10:02):
It's not reading books or anything, but it's so you
think it's supercharged when it comes to things like camouflage.
They never they don't have a cuttle fish on record
of reading Tolster or anything like that. Huh. They might
they might be doing some audio books. You know. You
hear these voices on the Adego books. You never really
see these guys that could it could be a cuttlefish. Yeah.
And and the brain is also really important in directing
(10:24):
the pigment producing cells and and directing its camouflage activities
Tolstoy camouflage, you know. Yeah, before we get into the
camouflage hardcore though, just a couple other quick anatomical facts. Um,
they're obviously they're really cute animals. And they have three hearts,
which may or may not be related to the cuteness,
(10:45):
but it is more likely related to the fact that
they need two hearts to pump their blue green blood
to the gills and one to circulate oxygenated blood to
the rest of the body. They can't hear them, I really,
but they do detect sound in the form of pressure waves,
and how do they do that? By the way, have
some handy lateral at the dermal lines, they feel like
(11:07):
the wave pressure. I think that's why I thought, yeah, yeah,
I think that's the way it works. Um and again
before we we're getting to the camouflage. But just a
couple of other interesting things about them. Size. When it
comes to the size of these cuttlefish, the smallest species
grows to be about three inches long, and I believe
these are typically like occupied like sort of tidal areas,
(11:29):
like tidal pool areas. And then the largest of the species,
which is called the broad club cuttlefish, which sounds like
a real thug of a of a sea creature. Yeah,
the club, I think is what gives you that broad
club cuttle fit like it takes the you know, we
think of cuttle we think of you know, like you know,
like kittens spooning each other something. But but but and
(11:51):
so you think of that when you when you elliot,
you know, I know it's not the same just to
clare yet it's a different word. But then when you
throw broad club on there, it's like they just totally
throws it out and those suckers can get too, to
be like five and a half feet long. And then
the the common cuttle fish is more than the three
foot range. I'm also excited that there is a species
(12:13):
known as um Feefer's flamboyant cuttlefish. Those are the guys
that are able to um kind of walk along the ocean.
They're apparently the only type of cuttle fish that kind
of walks along. And then they're really cool looking. They're
very I don't know the pictures I saw, they were
kind of a dark red kind of thing, but um,
you know, they're cuttlefish, so I imagine that changes depending on,
(12:34):
you know, seasonal fashions. Yeah, they're fickle, those cuttlefish. So
let's talk a little bit of about their camouflage. Okay, Yeah,
they can, like we said, they can change from like
white to purple and a flash. Uh. They appear to
sort of pulsate with light, you know, the very magical
looking iridescent, and then the very um surface of their
(12:56):
skin can sort of change, like it'll look look, you know,
just soft to the touch at one at one point,
and then it'll kind of creakle into this, uh, this
rocky surface and you know, just again it happened so subtly,
like if you're watching them in a tank, it's it's
it's like a trick of the eye almost because because
I mean they'll do like a quick flash here and
there where those are Suddenly there are different colors, Suddenly
(13:17):
their texture changes. But a lot of it's just really subtle,
like a mood ring or something. Yeah, and all that
awesome camouflage action is controlled by the chromatophores, which we
kind of just mentioned, and those are just the pigment cells,
and a heck of a lot of pigment cells too.
We're talking ten million, as many as ten million, so
if you think about that per square millimeter, that's roughly
two square millimeter, so that's a lot. That's a lot.
(13:40):
And they have these muscles that are attached to the
chromatophores and they tighten and relax to control which color
is displayed. Cool, and then the changeable texture that I
was talking about, that's due to bundles of muscles that
that are that are also under the skin that changed
the surface. So that's that's another component of the disguise.
(14:01):
You know, I feel like if I were in a
bad mood, I would definitely want that spiky surface, you know,
stay away from me. I'm feeling kind of spiky. Yeah,
I could I can see that being the case. It
would be like imagine, well, let's let's get through the
next component and then we'll imagine what life would be
like if we had these abilities. Because they also have
these reflecting plates. Um underneath, yeah, underneath the chromatophors, and
(14:25):
that's the where you get that, like I said, that
irridescent reflection kind of thing going on. Those have a vocabulary,
so all that color comes in handy to communicate. You're
not necessarily highly social, but they are able to communicate
as many I think as forty different signals biologists have identified. Yeah,
they've they've identified like forty different you know, combinations of
(14:47):
color and texture and all that that seemed to mean
a certain thing in the cuplefish world and between cuttlefish. Um.
So you know, vocabulary is a nice comfy human term
we throw at it. But but yeah, forty different different signals.
For instance, UM display, zebra display. Have you ever seen
one do this? By the way, I've definitely seen photos
of it, but it seems like when I see him
(15:08):
in tanks. No, I think I think I have seen
a zebra display. Right, So, zebra display, you want to
watch out because that's basically communicating I'm a mail, I'm
ready to do get out. Yeah, it's like humans have
their I think all animals have their zebra displays. They
just what is the human zebra display? How do we display?
How do humans display anger? Well? I don't know. I
(15:28):
kind of see a zebra display on Marta sometimes, Like
sometimes you'll see like the dude that's kind of like
that's um, he'll kind of like he'll put it like
a small bag in the Marta seat next to him
and he kind of sits there was like kind of
a tough guy. Look, you know, it's it's silly in
this all body language and all, but it's kind of like,
I'm a dude, don't sit next to me. You know,
I'm tough. Don't mess with me kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah.
(15:49):
Or maybe you make eye contact for a second and
it kind of holds your glance and then you look around,
you look away real fast. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.
The stink ye if you will, I guess the stink
ey is more of uh like it's not really it's
a different thing. You guys, MS you should be in
the studio with us, because Robert just trying to do
the stink eye, which was kind of funny. But yeah,
imagine if though you like our our daily lives, I
(16:11):
mean we again we have body lane, which we have
our our our facial like micro expressions. But imagine like
were like super pronounced and we you know, we communicated
through flashes of color and and and weird textures and
and iridescent displays. It would be pretty pretty amazing. In fact,
there's a there's one group of researchers from Woods, yeah,
(16:33):
Woods Whole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts that are looking
into the possibility that that that that that that iridescent
display relates to this thing they call light polar polarization signaling.
That means that there's just there's like an entirely different
layer of communication. It's like a very subtle communication that
they're pulling off between each other based on the kind
(16:55):
of shimmering uh displays that you see go on and
with their skin. So we might be picking up the
obviously were display, but there's another signal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
do the subtext I guess, you know, to the cuttlefish subtext.
I like them. So one of the most interesting signs
that for aggression that they have is that the peace signal?
(17:16):
You're telling me about this? This is cool? So they
hold up the two uh fingers are arms. Yeah, they
hold up a couple of the arms, um and kind
of and it looks a lot like like right now,
I'm I'm holding up two fingers like I'm doing the
peace signal, um, the peace sign and uh. Apparently if
they're if they're in a situation where they're trying to
intimidate somebody, reward off something, if the colors don't work,
(17:38):
they'll raise those two uh, those two arms up. So
you'll have divers apparently that when they're diving down and
dealing with cuttlefish as a lark, they will they'll they'll
give the peace sign to the cuttlefish and the cuttlefish
will give the peace sign back. Though they're totally different meanings.
The you know, the the human diver is doing it,
you know, out of humor and out of a sense
(17:59):
of peace. He doesn't want to harm the cuttlefish. Generally,
I would out, and the cuttlefish is saying, stay the
heck away from me. Yeah, wellmo, I'm gonna blast you
with the pseudomorph if you don't watch out, buddy, I
love the pseudomorphos. That's amazing. People would probably be a
pretty good band name too. Let's talk about the mating though.
This is really where the cuttlefish shines. Yeah, this is
(18:21):
pretty pretty awesome. And there's a whole segment on life
that deals with this from the Underwater Creatures episode. And
it's kind of a gender bender, Yes, it is a
gender bender. Like it basically breaks down to in the
male In the world of male cuttlefish, you kind of
have two types of dudes. You have the big it's
kind of like you've ever seen those like the cartoons
(18:42):
of the old, like nineteen fifties type of things where
you have the wormy guy on the beach and he
goes out there with his girlfriend and then the big
muscle dude kicks sand on him. Well, that's that's the
same thing that's going on here. We have the big,
beefy cuttlefish that are out on the beach to pick
up a chick. And then there's the wormy dude that
you know, might have brought his his book, you know,
with him to read his his you know, sci fi
(19:04):
collection or something um. And so, so those are the
two guys out there vying for the for the females.
So when it comes down to muscle, there's gonna be
one winner, of course, right right, and that's going to
be the broad beefy guy. But that's not to say
that the female cuttlefish won't let the the more petite
(19:24):
male approach. And the petite male has to be really
careful about this because nobody wants to get beat up
cuttlefish style or in real life. Yeah they can really,
I've seen some images of them tearing it up down there,
and they can get pretty vicious in their their their fights.
So the smaller size cuttlefish will change its colors to
reflect the coloration of a female, yeah, you know, kind
of like make himself small and submissive posturing type, you know,
(19:47):
and it will get real close to the female, the
mate that it has identified, and that's how it wins
the battle. And that's really how the broad beefy guys
and the you know, smaller, petite, perhaps more intelligent gender
bender cuttlefish coexis. Yeah, and because it's like both both
variants of the cuttle fish are important for the survival
of the species. So yeah, you have the big the
(20:07):
big b female cuttlefish will be hanging out there with
the the the female it hopes to mate with, and
then it sees this other female. It thinks it's a
female coming over, and it's like, oh, that's great, maybe
i'll mate with that one next, not knowing that that
is a male coming over to totally steal his lady. Yeah,
the female is a smart one here, she's perpetuating the
broader genetic pool. Yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's also
(20:31):
important taken to account the way they mate. The male
uses the modified arm to transfer his genetic material into
the female's bogle area sounds yeah, and the part of
her mouth that stores the males uh spermatophors for use later.
Like she actually then takes the this kind of like
packaged prepackaged sperm and then puts it on the eggs later.
(20:55):
So you know, if she has like a little from
column A and a little from column B, then that's
great because she wand up having this mixed offspring that
will can be both you know, the smaller sleeker um
you know, stealthier dudes and the big tough ones. So yeah,
why limen your options, ladies. Yeah, and and then she'll
of course want to keep that protected, so she'll store
(21:16):
her eggs and you know, in rocks or in a
nice handy discarded shell or something like that. Yeah, and
and that's again like I've got we actually got to
see those, uh, those those eggs when we went tom
on Hoey. It was really really cool. Yeah. I also
advise going over to the Life site and we're in
discovery if you're at all interested in the cuttlefish, are
learning a little bit more about these guys in action,
because it really is amazing footage. And hats off to
(21:39):
the men and women who captured this on film because
again I cannot imagine how complicated it must have been
to sort out all the different characters and the cuttlefish drama.
Oh yeah, and the results are just completely splendid. Like
just definitely definitely check check it out if even if
you only check out like some some video on the site,
you know. Um. And and also on the site, we
(22:00):
have a whole bunch of articles that that that we
wrote and put together. Uh. Like for instance, I interviewed
Life producer Neil Lucas about this very scene, and he
was the one who told me the whole story about
the editing woes and uh, and he had a lot
of just you know, funny things to say about you know,
his experience with the Cuddle. That was a fun project.
Gual talked to a lot of cool BBC producers. Yeah,
(22:22):
that was a lot of fun. Got got to making
a lot of phone calls to the UK. Do you
want to move into a listener man, Yes, um, I
actually have a really cool one here and it's a
response to our to a recent episode we did about
(22:43):
Sniper's Military Snipers. So this comes from Gabriel in Chicago, Illinois.
He says, Hi, all, I just finished hearing the episode
on Snipers, and you should know that the sniper duel
versus Sniper Wolf referenced in the show actually happened in
Metal Gear Solid one. We're talking about video games here,
not to I must have said it was too And
(23:07):
speaking of which, that duel was recreated in Metal Gear
Solid four, where you were locked in Mortal Kombat with
crying Wolf while evading our soldiers in Blizzard conditions. The
other difference is that she can smell you. Coming. Definitely
give that game a try. It's excellent if you like
sniper duels and metal Gear. Uh, the one in in
(23:27):
Metal Gear solid three is in my opinion, the best
one um and he says actually nerd lecture aside. I
love this podcast, which is definitely one of my faiths.
I did have a question though, how do they calculate
how many calories food has? And how do they determine
how much activity it takes to burn one off? I
love the Gabriel is kind of a man of wide
ranging interests. Well, I feel like a lot of our
(23:49):
interest I mean a lot of our our listeners have
to be because you know, we're talking about snipers one day,
and then it's cuttlefish and then it's composting, so you know, yeah,
he's kind of a renaissance men. It's so anyway, Gabriel,
thank you for straightening me out on my metal gear.
Because play that game, Robert part back. I've got too
many games I have to play. It's just I'll never play.
(24:10):
So if you guys want to connect with us on
video games, cuddlefish or hey snipersh to send us an
email at science Stuff at how stuff first dot com
or look at up on Facebook. Yeah we're on Facebook
as stuff in the Science Lab, and you'll find us
on Twitter as lab stuff. That's all we got, guys,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
(24:35):
other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot com home page
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