![]() However, there is still one major unsolved mystery surrounding cephalopod camouflage: how they are so good at matching their skin color to their surroundings. Octopuses also have more chromatophores than squids and cuttlefish per square inch of skin, Deravi said, which helps them to create super-high-resolution patterns compared with other cephalopods. (Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) Octopus brains are not just confined to their donut-shaped brains but also throughout their arms. In contrast, it can take chameleons several seconds to more than a minute to completely change color. "I think the fastest are under 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds), which is faster than a blink of an eye." "It's a fraction of a second," Deravi said. Many animals rely on camouflage, but octopuses are in a league of their own, largely because of the speed and accuracy with which they can transition between vastly different colors. What makes octopuses so good at changing color? The papillae are also controlled by neural signals from the brain, but this texture-changing process is even less understood than color-changing, Deravi said. They have tiny bumps called papillae that can be relaxed, making the skin smooth like seaweed, or contracted, making the skin lumpy and rough like a rock. Octopuses also possess machinery in their skin that helps them to change their texture, which adds another layer to their camouflage. Iridophores help octopuses produce iridescent blue and purple hues. In this scenario, the vibrations from the music are misinterpreted as neural signals by the chromatophore muscles. The Instagram post below shows squid chromatophores contracting and relaxing to the beat of the song "Insane in the Brain," by the band Cypress Hill. "With the chromatophores, the brain is signaling to pull these muscles to open up these sacs," which then changes the color of the skin. "It's just like how you would flex your biceps, your brain signals to flex and it flexes," Deravi said. Octopuses can combine these colors by changing the shape of the chromatophores in each layer, which enables the cephalopods to create a wide array of hues.Įach individual chromatophore, of which there can be tens of thousands or even millions depending on the size of the species, is controlled with direct neural signals from the octopus's brain that causes the muscles surrounding the sac to contract or relax, changing its shape. The top layer produces a yellow color, the middle layer reflects back a red color and the bottom layer produces a brown color, Deravi said. There are three layers of chromatophores in an octopus's skin, and each layer has xanthommatin particles that reflect back a different color. ![]() Because xanthommatin absorbs certain wavelengths, or colors, of visible light, the light it reflects back out of the chromatophore is a different color compared with the light that first entered the cell. As these muscle cells contract, the pigment sac stretches, which enables more light to enter the cell and reflect off the xanthommatin particles. The pigment sacs are surrounded by an elastic matrix that is, in turn, connected to muscle cells that surround the sac in a pointed star shape, she added. Octopuses can shift hues because they have chromatophores - tiny, color-changing organs that are dotted throughout an octopus's skin.Īt the heart of each chromatophore are tiny sacs filled with nanoparticles of a pigment called xanthommatin, Deravi said. But even though octopus camouflage "has been studied and observed for centuries, not a lot of developments have been made" until very recently, she said. ![]() ![]() Around 2,400 years ago, Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher who is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern science, jotted down detailed observations of octopus camouflage - the first known person to do so, Leila Deravi, a biochemist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts who studies octopus camouflage mechanics, told Live Science. Octopuses' mastery of camouflage has mystified researchers since the beginning of science itself. In this article, the term 'octopuses' is used to describe general trends throughout the group, but not every species is capable of changing color, and the camouflaging mechanics they use can vary.) (There are around 300 species of octopus in the order Octopoda. These animals have the highest resolution patterns of any cephalopod and display some of the quickest color transitions in the entire animal kingdom. Camouflage is an important skill shared by almost all cephalopods - a group of marine invertebrates that also includes squid and cuttlefish - but octopuses have taken it to a whole other level.
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