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Cuttlefish are not fish at all, and they're not particularly good at cuddling… not that
I've tried or anything. But these tentacled relatives of squid and octopus do have one
amazing sneaky skill.
So I love cuttlefish because of their color-changing abilities, tell us a little about that.
You know, the ability that cuttlefish and cephalopods have to change their color it's
unmatched in the animal kingdom, no chameleon, fish, there's nothing out there that can change
color as instantaneously as these cephalopods, so how they do that is that they have a whole
bunch of little tiny cells in their skin called chromatophores, they're color changing cells.
"Chromatophores are groups of pigment cells controlled by finely tuned muscles. When the
muscles contract the darker pigment is exposed and amazing patterns can emerge, to give warnings,
to give camouflage, even to hypnotize their prey.
Joe over in this tank over here we actually have several flamboyant cuttlefish. A lot
of times when you see flamboyant cuttlefish resting they're a little less flamboyant,
meaning they'll blend in with their surrounding: seagrass or a rock or something But when I
add some stimulus, like with this maintenance tool, they may flash to a very extremely bright
color. It's thought that this bright coloration signifies that they're poisonous.
Whoa, I'm terrified of this thing, I gotta be honest, I would not eat that.
That's the idea.
One of the most advanced nervous systems in invertebrates on the planet.
Well I've got a more advanced central nervous system than a cuttlefish, how hard can camouflage
be?
[MUSIC]
How do you know a cuttlefish from a squid?
That's a really good question. Cuttlefish and squid look really similar. The main distinguishing
feature is that cuttlefish possess a cuttlebone, which is a porous calcium carbonate shell
inside their body, and they'll use this cuttlebone to control their buoyancy, and so they can
either fill this porous cuttlebone with water to sink in the water column or with air and
they'll rise up in the water column. You may have also seen these cuttlebones at your local
pet store because parrots commonly eat cuttlebones as a source of calcium.
My parents had parakeets and had one of those, I always wondered what it was.
Using their skirt and siphon, cuttlefish are incredibly maneuverable. They're able to move
backwards and forwards… or tentaclewards and headwards.
So Bret it's really nice that you've decided to clean up some litter from Monterey Bay
here. What are we looking at with all these bottles?
So the female cuttlefish will lay her eggs on a shell or a rock, and then we can place
them in these incubation chambers here, which as you pointed out are made from recycled
soda bottle.
A cephalopod recycled bottle nursery!
Yes.
Unlike squids and octopuses, cuttlefish have no immature developmental stage, they're born
as miniature versions of their adult form, so they're able to disguise themselves even
when they're tiny babies.
Here we have a tank full of small stumpy cuttlefish hatchlings. At this size they're very vulnerable
to predation, so camouflage does play an important part of their surviving. Just to demonstrate
of how good they are, I'm going to move some of this rock work around so we can see how
many there actually are in here.
Bret, thanks for showing me around this cuttlefish cephalopod exhibit, you have any final words
of wisdom?
How many tickles does it take to make a cuttlefish laugh?
How many tickles does it take?
It takes TEN tickles.
I think we're done here.
If you thought cuttlefish were awesome, check out the rest of our playlist from Monterey
Bay. We've got a lot of "otter" great videos coming your way.
Stay curious.