Battle of Cuttlefish Caught on Tape
The New York Times James Gorman SCIENCETAKE
MAY 5, 2017
Cuttlefish, relatives of octopus and
squid, have millions of color cells in their skin, which gives them
extraordinary control over their appearance. They are brilliant at camouflage,
and they can also create displays to communicate to other cuttlefish.
The males do this when they are
fighting over a female. Their battles are primarily visual, flashing a zebra
strip display at a rival, or increasing the size of one pupil and creating a
dark eye ring. Scientists have seen much of this behavior, but in 2011 off the
coast of Turkey two researchers who were diving and observing the common
cuttlefish witnessed something much more extreme — a physical battle.
Justine J. Allen of Brown
University and Derya Akkaynak, now at the University of Haifa in
Israel, recorded video of the fight, which they just released, along with an
article in the The American Naturalist describing the encounter.
Dr. Allen said work on her Ph.D. and
other projects got in the way of preparing an article on the cuttlefish battle,
although they both knew how rare and compelling the fight was. Alexandra K.
Schnell of the University of Caen, Normandy, and Roger T. Hanlon of the Marine
Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., were also authors.
Dr. Allen said this was the first
recording of a physical battle between male cuttlefish. Such duels are thought
to be rare because of the importance of unmarred skin to creating camouflage
and other skin signals.
“They usually do battle with these
really beautiful skin displays,” Dr. Allen said.
In the encounter the two researchers
recorded, one male is guarding a female after mating. A second male intrudes
and actually runs the first male off with his displays. All of this follows a
model of gradual escalation, with each testing the other’s size and ability, as
such conflicts are supposed to proceed.
But when the second male (the
species is Sepia officinalis) tries to mate with the female, the first male
comes back and attacks. The two shoot dark brown ink and whirl around in a
tangle of tentacles.
That was the rare event. In the end,
the first male regained his position as consort, and the recordings didn’t
reveal any physical damage to either male.
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And now that you’ve had your cuttlefish fix, have
some octopus info:
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