Its eyes are like something from a Batman movie. Its feeding tentacles shoot out of its mouth like
birthday party blowers. Its blood is bluish green, and its “ink” is black. Scientists believe that
these amazing animals have a complicated system of communicating with each other, including the
use of dozens of different body patterns. Making the cuttlefish even stranger is the
fact that it is not even a fish, but a mollusk. (Who named this animal anyway?) A cuttlefish
has an internal shell called a cuttlebone, thus scientists classify it as a mollusk.
Perhaps the most amazing feature of cuttlefish is their ability to blend in to their surroundings.
Cuttlefish have been said to have “the world’s best camouflage skills.”
Cuttlefish have the
ability to change the texture of their skin to mimic the shape of certain barnacle-encrusted
rocks or corals. (What if we could do that?) These mollusks can move their entire bodies
into a variety of positions. For example, while swimming next to large seaweed, cuttlefish can
mimic the grass’s motion by positioning and waving their eight arms in a similar way that
the seaweed sways in the water. This makes it very difficult for both attackers and possible
prey to know exactly where the cuttlefish is. In a study a few years ago, scientists placed
horizontal and vertical stripes on the walls of different cuttlefish tanks. How did the
cuttlefish react? These creatures spread their bodies out horizontally when in the horizontally
lined tanks, and they raised at least one arm vertically when in the vertically lined tanks.
But what must annoy predators more than anything is the cuttlefish’s ability to change color—and
to do it so quickly. A cuttlefish can change the color of its entire body in the blink of an eye.
If this mollusk wants to change to red, it sends signals to its pigment sacs
to change to red. A cuttlefish can hide from other sea life by changing to the
color of the sand or seaweed. It can also appear as a strobe light, quickly blinking
“on and off,” likely to confuse predators. So extraordinary are these “masters of
camouflage” (as some have called them) that government researchers have even looked
into “the possibility of copying cuttlefish camouflage for use in the military.”
Researchers are enamored with “how cuttlefish achieve their quick and convincing camouflage.”
Nevertheless, the researchers admit “[i]t’s highly unlikely that anyone could achieve
that same level of camouflage.”
Scientists find it difficult
“mimicking the colour-matching abilities of the cuttlefish”
as well as its “texture-matching ability.”
In fact, “[n]o one knows exactly” how
cuttlefish match their backgrounds so effectively,
especially since “[e]xperiments have shown that cuttlefish don’t look at their skin to check how
well it matches the background.”
What’s more, if, as some scientists believe,
this animal is colorblind, only seeing in shades of green, how does it always choose the color
most helpful (like changing to the color of sand when on the ocean floor)?
Cuttlefish are remarkable creatures. Evolutionists have called the animal a “genius.”
Researchers admit that cuttlefish are “sophisticated,” “intelligent,” “tailor-made”
creatures with a “secret code.”
Yet, “evolution” is often the very first
word many think of to explain the existence of the cuttlefish. But how can intelligence
arise from non-intelligence? How can something “tailor-made” have no tailor?
No one would suggest that Morse code is the product of time and chance,
yet some evolutionists would have us believe that the cuttlefish’s “secret code” is the product of
millions of years of mindless accidents? The fact is, naturalistic evolution cannot
rationally explain the cuttlefish. The real Code-Giver, the intelligent
Designer Who “tailor-made” the cuttlefish, is God. As the psalmist proclaimed: “This great and wide
sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. O Lord,
how manifold are Your works! In wisdom you have made them all.”