Some of these you might have seen before; others you won’t have. And there’s some scientific explanation of how the patterns can change.
Go here to see the video.
4.5 minutes of camouflaged cephalopods
September 18, 2013 • 2:38 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I didn’t know octopuses were colour blind. Those pretty eyes and yet they don’t see colour. I guess their predators must though!
Excellent video! It’s a great day when I learn something new and interesting.
Stunning video (although they referred to the beasties as “octopi”, groan)
I think some species of octopus can see colour. Aegina, for example.
Ha ha I missed the “octopi”. I love it when people get snooty with me when I say “octopuses” and try to tell me it’s “octopi” because then I get all Ancient Greek on their asses & explain exactly why it’s “octopodes”. 😀
There’s always this handy flowchart.
Ha ha! I love it!
That is a great find! Love the internet.
Oh, that will get some shareage
I still don’t understand how they do it when they are color blind. Are they just really good at determining the needed shading and that happens to form the correct color pattern?
No one is sure so it’s god. 😉
The pattern matches are remarkable, and matching both pattern and texture really floors me too. But we know they cannot do these things unless they can see their environment. I do not know if they are ‘thinking’ about it, or if it is more like a reflex.
In any case being able to match color while being color blind is not necessarily a great stretch. Most natural pigments are various shades of white, brown, and yellow. Corals, sponges, seaweed will tend to be those colors, or at least look like those colors under water. Octopuses will also have natural pigments, so they are ready-made to match. It could be fairly simple. If they see light tones they display more light tones (which is white), medium tones cause them to display more more medium tones (yellow), and so on.
I think “color-blind” in this context just means they don’t differentiate color with their eyes. It doesn’t mean they don’t have some other way of detecting color.
My totally uninformed guess is that the skin itself somehow senses the color of whatever it’s near in order to match it. So different body parts can match different backgrounds without any need for visual guidance from the eyes.
Fred Astaire doesn’t need to see his feet to dance properly. I’m guessing this is like that, an internal body sense that tells the octopus when it’s properly camouflaged without looking.
Those seem to be reasonable ideas. Color vision is the norm for invertebrates with even decent eyes, and one should expect that shallow water cephalopods should see some color. As for seeing with their skin, or through their skin, I suppose that cannot be ruled out.