NYTimes.com Cuttlefish Camouflage

[Pokemarky]

4:53 Spy!

[CJTheInvader]

"Ink in my face."

They say it like its a usual thing at a marine biology lab.

"Meh, ink in my face. again."

"Walk it off, you pussy."

[Alenthas]

squids are fucking scary. I fucking hate them while playing minecraft. scarier than creepers :D

[coldfyre18]

@Alenthas Are you a girl?

[Alenthas]

@coldfyre18 no are you?

[coldfyre18]

@Alenthas What's so scary about squids then?

[Alenthas]

@coldfyre18 I dunno man they freak me out. I mean there are people who sceram when they see a creeper. I'm not freaked out by creepers but squids freak me out man. Especially when they're swimming in shallow water and their tentacles are sticking out and stuff. That shit aint right.

[MovieMaster03]

@coldfyre18 my wife is a marine biologist and works with squids and other sea creatures every day. Welcome to the 21st century son, time to grow up.

[coldfyre18]

@MovieMaster03 I'm not the guy who said I was scared of squids :P

[vampirewolfeh]

@MovieMaster03 :D I wanna be a marine biologist when i grow up :DDD

[MsSunhappy]

god, i hate the narrator

[Jalanox]

The camouflage works like this, the cuttlefish has little microscopic balls of colored ink/gel in small round packs with strands of muscle around it. When it wants to change its color the brain makes the muscles pull pulling the sphere into a flat disc, each sphere has a different color. Underneath these are patches of color which are the template for it. Splotches of black blue and green. That's how they use their magic camouflage (as seen on nova ;P)

[tugboatyan]

1:52 - they're watching the watchers, looking for exploitable weaknesses, probing our minds with their psychic powers.

[themrfj]

This video looks fake. Morphing is going on

[themrfj]

@themrfj Especially on the scientists head! You can clearly see his forehead gaining several lines, when he makes certain facial expressions. This simply can only be CGI!

[jhniscolV2]

this is amazing

[ultimatebman]

yum

[Insubordinate90]

4:50 HOLY FUCK

[Insubordinate90]

Wow

[sami2291]

I <3 Cuttlefish :]

[ajsaccount1991]

vanilla paste! vanilla paste!

[mokeesl]

I had some cuttlefish stare me down at Disney's Epcot. It was amazing.

[silentthreadTVNet]

Thumbs up if you learned about cuttlefish from South Park.

[ultimatebman]

@silentthreadTVNet what episode

[IknowWhatImherefor]

This cuttlefish let meryl die on his first playthrough....

[TheBehattedOne]

It's a predator baby.

[MarkArandjus]

HAh, squid attack.

In Soviet Russia the Cracken releases you!

[Bunnokazooie]

Cracked.

[volcombover]

"watch him he'll grab my finger.... WAP!!"

[weya]

1:58 I'd swear those background cuttlefish are checking out the camera crew. o.o

[Turquesai]

Holy crap 4:53 is amazing.

[scottsigler]

Carl Zimmer is a fantastic science writer. Go pick up PARASITE REX, that book will blow your mind.

[Hardwyre]

You know the moment we can synthesize this, the military is going to jump apeshit all over it.

[bioreflex]

Looks like Zerg harvester

[a3rYst]

@bioreflex I love you. :'D ♥

[frembo1]

@bioreflex Drones have claws, not tenticles

[intoximacated]

@bioreflex :-)

[heyeveryoneimcool]

Amazing stuff. Dr. Hanlon has contributed much to our limited understanding of what lies beneath the ocean. I hope to one day see the secrets of love and caring that we can learn from these gentle cuttlefish.

[IggyHazard]

Squids will even battle sharks! Tenacious to the core. And those cuttlefish are so graceful the way the fin flows with such a fluid motion like a liquid dance. Their more dangerous cousins are also graceful but sort of the way a boa constrictor is graceful -- sort of a blend of power and beauty. But then, the human mind has a natural tendency to associate power with beauty, hence our fascination with dangerous lifeforms.

[megabigblur]

Cephalopods are just bloody amazing animals. Recommended reading:

nonfic: "In the Blink of an Eye" by Andrew Parker- a proposal that it was the evolution of vision that drove the Cambrian explosion

science fiction: "Later Than You Think" by Fritz Leiber- octopuses take over the world after humans are gone (short story in the Best SF 5 anthology ed Edmund Crispin)

[fairiebee]

@megabigblur  Thanks for the recommendations. ; ) They are such fascinating creatures.

[DJXeon93]

6 people are cuttlefish in disguise

[MSMITH8267]

SOOOOOOO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ninjerina]

If I was going to be a scientist this is probably the job I'd want

[ashleyrod90]

wooow thats sooo cool maybe i would want to studddy cuttlefish wen i grow up.

[hslesperance]

@ashleyrod90 I want to BE a cuttlefish when I grow up!

[DocTill]

@hslesperance I AM a cuttlefish.

[anshumanwashere]

@DocTill ......I am an Ex Cuttle fish.

[gurugurusama]

Wanted more footage of cuttlefish. Less of scientist. Please fix this!

[bmanley620]

@gurugurusama don't you realize that the "scientist" is actually a cuttlefish disguising itself as a scientist. mission accomplished!

[Ozarkeree]

@bmanley620 HOLY SHIII

[Gameczar]

4:53 holy shit, that looks better than some special effects in movies

[jb0y07]

i want a pet one

[adithyakiran16]

youtube is the stupidest fucking website ruins good vids with their shitty fucking ads

[magicalmysteryollie]

@adithyakiran16 Ad block plus for firefox solves all of that.

[adithyakiran16]

@magicalmysteryollie Thanks will try that

[garbagedisposal764]

the dude's eyebrows can camouflage too! you can hardly even see them!

[ta2617]

amazing...

[frankystein12]

This is simply mind-boggling, I cannot see the cuttlefish at 4:53 even when the camera was that close to the creature.

[Adhemar05]

hehe 1:50 to 2:06 Those cuttle fish are the best stalkers ever found in aquaria xD

[tommystockley]

The experiment between then eye, the cuttlefish didn't appear to be interested in camauflaging. It just sat there... I gotta say, if I were running this experiment, I'd be using all sorts of silly patterns. like... a bunch of army-men stand on a blue and purple striped placemat... yeah... lets see how he handles THAT one :P

[vinzdd]

that was super amazing... if scientist will find out the secret of this camouflage mechanism and some mad scientist will try to experiment this on another animals surely in the future human will have this capability. Super freak but awesome......

[SergeOfArniVillage]

This is not fake, people, nature is just engrossingly amazing :D

Wonderful video.

[TheNeobrewer]

you can see the cuttlefish working things out in it's mind trying to size you up I could spend 30 years looking at them. very cool

[MrBrakovich]

LOL

˅˅

[bjsparntz]

2:26

Interesting, I did not know that the Giant Panda had camouflage abilities. They must work so well that humans think they are going extinct.

[NvikIngsN]

Humboldt Squid are starting to take over...

[Lavos2007]

and people think it may be due to Global Warming which is possibly changing the temperature ranges of the deeper layers of the ocean, this basically means the Humboldt's area of normal habitation may be growing verticcally, and if they stay plaguing the USA West Coast area, they will kill off the fish and local seafood industry, humboldts are voracious, they will even attack divers, their powerful creatures too, they will contemplate anything near their size or smaller as potential food

[yourworstnightmare51]

Absolutely amazing!

[omegablake]

Oreo factories indeed!

[Septhin]

Cuttlefish are so cute <3 I want one :´(

[dreg138]

Cute, and delicious!

[crazzy7388]

Open a book RoboGerbil1

"Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into their shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings."

[svphink]

You're all idiots, pandas hide out in oreo factories

[theguywhoknowsall22]

hahaha..nice comment

[addictedtotoads]

!!! hahah

[hiitsme3love128]

PANDAS CAMOUFLAGE?!?!?!?!!?!?

[kefsound]

...works only if they are on a white and black pattern.

[hiitsme3love128]

ohh....

[iSOBigD]

@kefsound They work great on a giant chess board. To be fair though, humans have great camouflage too, as long as they're naked and in an environment of human skin!

That panda image was completely out of place - all the other animals CHANGE colors at will, they don't just happen to have fur of more than one color.

[rohsilv]

dr. hanlon...irish decent!

[jk98765432]

Pbbt, People on youtube thinking it's fake is not amazing. The average youtube user probably has an IQ below 50, so yeah...

[funkstar74]

commercials suck!!!!!!

[guidi2005]

just hit re-fresh

[kittyz28]

lol thanks for this video i learned alot

[RoboGerbil1]

I think a panda could be all but invisible in it's habitat.

[berry24]

whoa! that was some cool camouflage

and really? i didn't know panda were considered animals who camouflaged

[Ginkman99]

i agree pandas don't camouflage

[Oneiroi729]

I love how the cuttlefish is just meandering as it will in the aquarium while that guy with the glasses talks away.

[synapris]

hahah yea. its just chillin out.

[Blitzoir]

Why would a squid want to steal a camera, I wonder...

[Gerafix]

To make squid pr0n, of course.

[jjqqpublic]

uh it was trying to bite the man and thought the camera was a part of the man...it realized it was not edible and spit it out. the guy probably scared it off too

[zilkid180]

Look at all these camouflaged animals. You got your sea horse, you got your frog, you got your chameleon, you got your fucking panda. Lolwut.

[skeevystoner]

hahaha dude your totally right!  Like how does a panda camo itself? With cuteness?

[Isakuma]

With Ghillie suits.

[mrjimmyos]

5.45, robbers are everywhere!

[rob6van1dam9]

holy shit 4:40-5:10!! that's the kind of stuff you only see in cartoons! not even movies :P

[Perhapsy]

"He was screaming, I don't know what the squid was saying."

I love this guy.

[linkogecko]

There's no way that guy isn't Christopher Walken's cousin or something.

[TezzleNZeek]

Cuttlefish are dongtacular.

[ervin2]

Lmao: "Most users still don't believe it's real"

OH NO WAY!?

[lJavieR7l]

Real Octocamo in action!

[jogger5]

simply amazing, thank you

[BWSRLOCS]

why are there pandas in the cammo. section ????

[SaZooCaballero]

because the best cammo for green is a BIG black and white bear! we can stop spending money on "why are Pandas becoming Extinct". i've got the answer!

[Devourer09]

Because they are cute.

[hippocampuszosterae]

to mimic broad shadows and light in the forest.

[jackiegr81]

that was so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PepeLePew125]

i'm good at camouflage also.

HAH! you can't see me!

[Evi1M4chine]

Or so you thought! Oh, and you have no milk anymore! You should also wash your bedsheets from time to time.I found more stains than clean areas! ^^

[StigmataBOB1]

I to have a pasion for Knowlege.

Thank you for sharing.

[underwatercookie]

Awesome!

[feroniafreeman]

dammit..i have watched this over and over again and STILL cannot tell where the octopus is before it changes! yikes!

[LoONaBLuE]

hoh shit!!! at 4:54 O_o

the narrator's voice is SO annoying

[Viconiuz]

Its just amazing how those squids can change the pigment in their cells so fast.

[PrincessCuttlefish]

I love cuttlefish. I would love to have his job. :D

Too bad, I'm getting a teaching degree in art.

[TotallyBoredDudes]

holy shit! 4:54 didn't see that coming....

[jlfrank83]

This video is a year old and all of a sudden shows up featured on Yahoo's front page today. Weird.

[vairocana23]

Damn, California economic woes are so bad that even the Humboldt Squid are trying to rob marine biologist of their underwater cameras.  : )

[ex3jets]

WOW 4:40 totally using invisibility hax!

[allanseeder]

I also believed that the video 4:40 is fake. so I know it is not:)

[BinkieMcFartnuggets]

All I know is that sometimes they get really big, speak English, and have pirate ships.

[Scamilton89]

"Jack Sparra'. Do ya fear death-ah?"

[rmephh]

...And here was me thinkin the octopus must be hiding behind that sea plant somewhere! Geez that made me jump! Cephalopods are my favourite animal group. Dr Hanlon has one of the best jobs in the world, I envy him.

[jetininjaman]

neet

he he, he has a yuotube acouunt.

[horacetx]

the best cuttlefish video on youtube

[rawrrrMissPANIC]

Holy cow. Calm down. It's just six minutes. You could've stopped at any time.

[abz48]

I agree

[nazaxprime]

we have wireless cyber rats now, that would be interesting applied to cuttlefish after we understand this biotech. the reason i put this together was a stephen baxter novel called manifold space, or manifold time, i forget which, but they engineer cuttlefish to operate spacecrafd due to their relative viscosity and the survivability of a lifeform traveling in a water atmosphere under high G acceleration stress'. about the humbolt... wow, the beak on that thing is scairy, dont forget your armor.