Cephalopods Camouflage 'Where's The Octopus?'

[Voyageur]

Though this was interesting footage and expose of this little understood marine science. Octopus, as cephalopod member species, those "masters of optical illusion" with their biological instantaneous abilities are really startling creatures, hence the biologists reaction.

When marine biologist Roger Hanlon captured the first scene in this video he started screaming. (If you need to see it again, here's the raw footage.) Hanlon, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, studies camouflage in cephalopods--squid, cuttlefish and octopus. They are masters of optical illusion. These are some of Hanlon's top video picks of sea creatures going in and out of hiding. music by DjCode, Best of Breitband, footage courtesy of roger hanlon, produced by flora lichtman Viewed 551889 times.

_http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10397

 

[anart]

Really interesting that they also change skin texture to blend in!

 

[Tigersoap]

Wow that's pretty amazing !
Ninja octopus !

 

[stellar]

Really interesting that they also change skin texture to blend in!

Truly fascinating creatures. Imagine if humans could do that, how much more trouble we'd be in. Or maybe some can already ;).

 

[Ðekel]

as well as octopi, cuttlefish also utilize chromatophores for camoflauge / communication and they change their skin texture as well. it really is amazing.

i'm fortunate to have "bumped into" two cuttlefish while snorkeling in Sinai a few years back.
they just floated there flashing bright colors across their bodies as if trying to communicate.
i respected them and kept my distance, avoiding quick body movements as to not startle them.

it is quite an awesome sight. sort of like being in space with a few spacecraft hovering around. :)
they really have an alien feel to them, especially with those eyes.

although the cuttlefish in this video seems scared this is a sample;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ5EUiQUaDk

 

[bngenoh]

Cephalopods are really amazing creatures, their eyes are interesting as well. Morphologically their eyes are similar to humans, but with one major difference, the overall structure is inverted, so that Cephalopods do not have the blind spot that humans have due to the need to wire the photoreceptors through a region of the retina.

Despite all these similarities, there are some differences between cephalopod and vertebrate camera eyes. The eyes of some cephalopods lack a cornea, which is not disadvantageous, as the cornea plays no role in focussing in an aquatic environment (it has virtually the same refractive index as water). Furthermore, the cephalopod retina is everted, i.e. the distal ends of the photoreceptor cells are oriented towards the lens. Consequently, the connection between photoreceptors and the optic nerve is made behind the retina. In contrast, vertebrates have an inverted retina, where the photoreceptors lie behind transparent ganglion cells. This means that the optic nerve has to pass through the retina, resulting in a blind spot (which, accordingly, is absent in the cephalopod eye). The structure of the photoreceptors is also different, being rhabdomeric in the cephalopod eye and ciliary in the vertebrate eye.

Source: http://www.mapoflife.org/topics/topic_7_Camera-eyes-of-cephalopods/

Better explanation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_W-IXqoxHA&feature=related

Know for some speculation. The C's have said that we were biogenetically engineered to basically be dumb animals, functioning with capabilities that are only related to physical survival, maybe in the course of that engineering, one of the consequences was this literal change ie inversion in the morphology of the eye/I that created the blind spot in our SIGHT. "I" would venture to say that their camouflage abilities are intimately tied into their visual system.

Just wild speculation though. :D

 

[liffy]

Well, that was pretty amazing :D

Here's another octopus that has a few other tricks to get around without getting eaten.

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc

 

[Gawan]

Thanks for sharing, really fascinating animal(s)!

Truly fascinating creatures. Imagine if humans could do that, how much more trouble we'd be in. Or maybe some can already ;).

Yes, the psychopath-octopus. For every tentacle another persona ;)