{"id":23134,"date":"2025-03-03T15:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23134"},"modified":"2025-03-03T17:24:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T17:24:25","slug":"what-a-crab-sees-before-it-gets-eaten-by-a-cuttlefish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23134","title":{"rendered":"What a Crab Sees Before It Gets Eaten by a Cuttlefish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cuttlefish use visual tricks to avoid being eaten. New research shows how they deploy similar camouflage to bamboozle their prey.<\/p>\n

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In May 2023, Matteo Santon<\/a> was filming cuttlefish in the shallow-water reefs around Indonesia. A marine visual ecologist at Bristol University in England, he planned to document the predators\u2019 approach to hunting from the perspective of the prey \u2014 essentially, to see what it\u2019s like to be the crab.<\/p>\n

He was hoping to see a particular hypnotic camouflage display cuttlefish use while attacking. But the cephalopods had their own innovations to show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I saw these hunting displays, it was probably one of the coolest things I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Dr. Santon said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a series of dives over the next year, he and his team filmed more than 200 cuttlefish hunts, from crab-eye view. In a study published last month in the journal Ecology<\/a>, the scientists documented four elaborate body patterns the cuttlefish used, including what appeared to be imitations of drifting leaves or corals. The cuttlefish displays may somehow hack the visual system of their prey, which may mask their movement or convince the crabs they are harmless flora and fauna, rather than wily predators soon to end their lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The pulse technique, which may mimic something nonthreatening, the researchers suggest, such as a small fish.<\/span>Matteo Santon<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Cuttlefish are masters of deception. Much like their octopus cousins, the animals have skin filled with pigment-loaded cells and piston-like muscular pumps, which they use to alter their color and texture. They can camouflage almost instantaneously to hide from predators, blending into the seafloor, for example, or disguising themselves as rocks or algae. In laboratories, scientists have also observed some of these sophisticated behaviors as cuttlefish hunt. But this hunting ability has seldom been studied in the wild.<\/p>\n

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Cuttlefish use visual tricks to avoid being eaten. New research shows how they deploy similar camouflage to bamboozle their prey.In May 2023, Matteo Santon was filming cuttlefish in the shallow-water reefs around Indonesia. A marine visual ecologist at Bristol University in England, he planned to document the predators\u2019 approach to hunting from the perspective of the prey \u2014 essentially, to see what it\u2019s like to be the crab.He was hoping to see a particular hypnotic camouflage display cuttlefish use while attacking. But the cephalopods had their own innovations to show.\u201cThe first time I saw these hunting displays, it was probably one of the coolest things I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Dr. Santon said.In a series of dives over the next year, he and his team filmed more than 200 cuttlefish hunts, from crab-eye view. In a study published last month in the journal Ecology, the scientists documented four elaborate body patterns the cuttlefish used, including what appeared to be imitations of drifting leaves or corals. The cuttlefish displays may somehow hack the visual system of their prey, which may mask their movement or convince the crabs they are harmless flora and fauna, rather than wily predators soon to end their lives.The pulse technique, which may mimic something nonthreatening, the researchers suggest, such as a small fish.Matteo SantonCuttlefish are masters of deception. Much like their octopus cousins, the animals have skin filled with pigment-loaded cells and piston-like muscular pumps, which they use to alter their color and texture. They can camouflage almost instantaneously to hide from predators, blending into the seafloor, for example, or disguising themselves as rocks or algae. In laboratories, scientists have also observed some of these sophisticated behaviors as cuttlefish hunt. But this hunting ability has seldom been studied in the wild.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23136,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23137,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23134\/revisions\/23137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}