is this octopus-camoflage video real?

[jeffcapeshop]

hi,

i came across this video of an octopus camoflaged against a "bush" -

http://www.break.com/index/octopus1.html

i think it's quite well known and you've probably seen it before, but i find it very hard to believe it's real - the octopus seems to have got the shadows right, which would only work from the direction the camera is viewing it from, and when in reverse the right side of the octopus seems to shrink and become spikey (right click zoom fullscreen for a better, though still lo-res view)

do any of you esperts have an opinion? i know cephlapod camoflage is pretty highly advanced, but is it really this good?

thanks,

jeff

 

[bigGdelta]

Real. After reading the comments I can't believe so many people thought this clip (which was from a freaking nature documentary) was fake. Here's a cuttlefish vid showing how fast cephs can change color http://www.tonmo.com/images/vids/CFvsFish.MPG

 

[jeffcapeshop]

i didn't notice the comments.. perhaps i should have read them first

do you happen to know what documentary this featured on?

 

[main_board]

Octopuses are masters at camo. They can change not only colour, but also the texture of their skin (and the amount of light reflected off their skin as well, I think). Definitely amazing creatures.

Cheers!

 

[Feelers]

I think someone asked about this video before, and someone (here on the board) actually knew the marine biologist who filmed it. He had been following the octopus before he started filming, and saw it land on the weed.
Wow 9 pages of comments on that video!!!

The octopus in the video is the common octopus O. Vulgaris, some people here actually keep this species.
Colour changing is really weird to watch, it kinda pulses outwards from the centre.
Cuttlefish as stated above are even more impressive in terms of colour changing ability. They can match patterns, ie a checkers board, while an octopus lacks this ability.

 

[GPO87]

I love color change, and I seriously couldn't beleive how fast he changed either, even though I have watched previous documentaries
on color change in cephs. Why cant humans do that?? Wouldn't that be awsome...

 

[aximbigfan]

WOW!!!! i didn not know that they could change color that fast!!! i though it took like 10 min. before they fully changed from one color to the next!

chris

 

[Graeme]

Nope, their colour change abilities are the most advanced on the planet- Camelions have nothing on them! I think there's this one film I've been desperately trying to track down called "Aliens of the Abyss" about cuttlefish, and they show a clip of a male cuttle essentially "split in half" where it's side on between another male and a female, and one half of its body is displaying a vibrant warning signal to the male, while the other is displaying courtship colours to the female!! Amazing control; suggests a high degree of intellegence! I've never seen this vid, but one of my lecturers, who is a marine biologist, raves about this documentary, so I have to track it down!

Graeme

 

[Euprymna]

I think someone asked about this video before, and someone (here on the board) actually knew the marine biologist who filmed it.

I think it's Roger Hanlon who filmed this,not 100% sure though

 

[bigGdelta]

Nope, their colour change abilities are the most advanced on the planet- Camelions have nothing on them! I think there's this one film I've been desperately trying to track down called "Aliens of the Abyss" about cuttlefish, and they show a clip of a male cuttle essentially "split in half" where it's side on between another male and a female, and one half of its body is displaying a vibrant warning signal to the male, while the other is displaying courtship colours to the female!! Amazing control; suggests a high degree of intellegence! I've never seen this vid, but one of my lecturers, who is a marine biologist, raves about this documentary, so I have to track it down!

Graeme

I've seen video of caribbean reef squid doing the same thing.

 

[Neogonodactylus]

It was Roger Hanlon who got this footage.

While the change in color can be spectactular, it is not infalable. They use a fairly simple set of decision rules to match contrast and usually on the reef, the color is reasonably correct. However, because octopus lact color vision, they can make mistakes. What really is the most effective part of the camouflage is the ability to match tecture. Octopus are much better at getting tecture right and this often conceals the errors in color matching.

Roy

 

[jeffcapeshop]

the ability to alter their texture would presumably account for the match of shadows shown in the video - i wasn't aware of this ability before, but it makes a lot of sense!

 

[bigGdelta]

Don't they have reflective cells that let them match nearby colors?

 

[Feelers]

The reflective cells are called iridiophores, "which work by differential refraction of light". The greenish metallic tint is cause by these. They often seem quite prominent in photos of Briareus's for some reason.

Heres a good pic of the greenish tint on a cuttle...

 

[bigGdelta]

Aren't most red things black after a few feet (i may have it backwards but i think the red wavelengths are the first to go)? Then the greens yellows and blues would be much more important to the cephs