Biol. Bull. 207: 154. (October 2004)
© 2004 Marine Biological Laboratory
The Time Course of the Camouflage Response of Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis)
Leib Litman1 and
Roger T. Hanlon2
1 City University of New York, New York City, New York
2 Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The camouflage changes of cuttlefish are thought to be instantaneous. In nature, cuttlefish have been observed (and videotaped) to blend into their surroundings almost as fast as they can move. However, this question has never been addressed experimentally. In an attempt to measure the speed of the camouflage response, we placed the cuttlefish on checkerboard and dark sand substrates, which are known from previous experiments to produce disruptive and uniform coloration, respectively; and we timed their camouflage responses. Unexpectedly, the animals did not produce camouflage immediately, but refined their body patterns over 3 to 5 minutes on average, sometimes taking up to an hour. One possibility for the slow responses in our experiment is that the cuttlefish are not as efficient on artificial substrates as they are on natural ones. Another possibility is that the instantaneous ability to camouflage in the wild is the result of the animal either (i) having had experience adapting to those substrates in the course of its life, or (ii) requiring certain visual stimuli during a critical period of early development. If so, the implication is that the sensory-motor camouflage response of cuttlefish is plastic to some extent and that the efficiency with which it is produced is, at least in part, a product of its life experience. While at this time the conclusion that the camouflage response of cuttlefish is experience- or critical-period-dependent remains speculative, this possibility is intriguing and should be pursued in future experiments.
