Watch Cuttlefish Use Camouflage to Confuse Crabs, Taking on the Appearance of Coral and Leaves

Cuttlefish are known deceivers. The sea creatures can rapidly shift between various hues and patterns thanks to millions of little color cells called chromatophores in their skin. And in an added feat, they can even change the texture of their skin with bands of circular muscle. These eight-armed cephalopods, relatives of squids and octopuses, use this technique to hide from predators—but they also use it to disorient their prey.

Now, researchers have captured four specific cuttlefish camouflage techniques on video, revealing more about this mesmerizing ability. The scientists filmed more than 200 cuttlefish hunts and observed four patterns the animals use to confuse crabs, which they named leaf, coral, pulse and passing stripe. Their findings were published in February in the journal Ecology.

“These are masters, the hypnotists of the underwater world,” says study co-author Matteo Santon, a visual ecologist at the University of Bristol in England, to Sofia Quaglia at New Scientist.

Santon and his colleagues conducted their research near the reefs of the Kri and Mansuar Islands in the Raja Ampat region of Indonesia and attracted the local broadclub cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus) using live crabs as bait. Then, they set up a GoPro camera and watched.

Watch this cuttlefish turn into a leaf and a coral to hunt its prey

At first, the cuttlefish moved toward the crabs slowly. Then, when the cephalopods were within about 3 to 6.5 feet of their prey, they began the color-shifting displays.

For the leaf technique, the cuttlefish turned green and stuck out their arms, akin to mangrove leaves moving with the current, per the paper. As branching coral look-alikes, the cuttlefish splayed out their arms and displayed dark mottles to blend in with staghorn coral. Sometimes, they even reached out one pair of arms toward their prey.

In the passing stripe display, the cuttlefish turned gray and shot a stripe down their body, which might help mask them as they make a direct approach toward their target. And finally, in the pulse technique, the cuttlefish pointed their arms upward and pulsed a black stripe toward the tips of the arms. The reason for this move is still unclear to the scientists, but they suggest the pulse might be mimicking a smaller, non-threatening fish.

Trevor Wardill, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientist that these displays might help the cuttlefish approach their prey faster, or hide from their own predators.

Not all of the displays could be categorized neatly into one of the four categories. Sometimes, the cuttlefish were seen switching between displays during the same hunt. They would start with the branching coral display and end with the passing stripe, for instance. On rare occasions, the cuttlefish would even perform hybrid displays, such as taking on the shape of a leaf while passing dark pulses of color down their arms.

“The underlying question is to what extent these are innate responses, or if they’re able to flexibly mix different components of the behaviors and learn about different situations—whether it’s a higher level form of cognition,” says Daniel Osorio, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in England who was not involved in the study, to Richard Kemeny at the New York Times.

Although scientists are still not sure how the cuttlefish choose which disguise to put on, their camouflage remains awe-inspiring.

“Whether or not the cuttlefish are learning to adjust their predatory displays, they still reflect an impressive degree of neural processing power,” adds Rachel Blaser, a neuroscientist at the University of San Diego who was not involved in the work, to the New York Times. “It represents an extremely sophisticated level of motor coordination.”