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Visual Background Features That Elicit Mottled Body Patterns in Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis

¹ Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
² Boston University Marine Program, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
³ National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, can produce a variety of body patterns for camouflage on natural substrates. Among these body patterns, the visual background cues for eliciting mottled patterns have not been studied systematically. The objective of this study was to determine the visual features that elicit mottled body patterns, which are characterized by light and dark splotches on the body. First, animals were presented with artificial substrates—black and white checkerboard squares of various sizes—to determine the area of the squares that would elicit mottled body patterns. Results indicate that checkerboard squares with an area of about 4%–12% of the area of the animal’s white square (a light body patterning component in the dorsal mantle) elicited mottled body patterns in three test groups (10 animals of 1.65 cm mantle length (ML); 6 animals of 10 cm ML; 6 animals of 17 cm ML). Second, different ratios of black and white squares (of the appropriate size) were tested to determine whether a predominance of black vs. white had a stronger sensory influence on the resulting body pattern; i.e., do the animals cue preferentially on the dark or light visual background objects? With 10 animals of 1.65 cm ML, three combinations worked similarly well: 1 white: 1 black; 1w:3b; and 3w:1b. The forward and reverse combinations of 1:15, 1:63 and 1:1023 did not elicit mottled body patterns consistently. Our conclusion is that a high frequency of light and dark small objects of similar proportions (1:1, 1:3, 3:1) in the visual background tends to elicit mottled body patterns. Future experiments are meant to determine the exact combinations of light and dark background objects and contrast ranges that are used by cuttlefish to produce adaptive coloration by means of mottled body patterns.

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				L. M. Mathger, C.-C. Chiao, A. Barbosa, K. C. Buresch, S. Kaye, and R. T. Hanlon Disruptive coloration elicited on controlled natural substrates in cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis J. Exp. Biol., August 1, 2007; 210(15): 2657 - 2666. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Barbosa, L. M. Mathger, C. Chubb, C. Florio, C.-C. Chiao, and R. T. Hanlon Disruptive coloration in cuttlefish: a visual perception mechanism that regulates ontogenetic adjustment of skin patterning J. Exp. Biol., April 1, 2007; 210(7): 1139 - 1147. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Barbosa, A. Articles by Hanlon, R. T. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Barbosa, A. Articles by Hanlon, R. T.