Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have studied camouflage in the common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) — a master of camouflage — as behavioral motion towards background matching in skin-pattern space. Their observations suggest that the cuttlefish’s camouflage system is highly flexible and adaptable, providing new insights into this complex physiological process.
“Cephalopod camouflage consists of matching the animal’s appearance to that of its substrate and typically contains 2D and 3D components,” said senior author Dr. Gilles Laurent from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and colleagues.
“Although both components are technically textural in this field the term ‘texture’ is often applied only to 3D features, caused, for example, by the contraction of skin papillae.”
“We studied the 2D features of camouflage and therefore refer to them as skin patterns and to the process as pattern matching,” they added.
“Pattern matching does not consist of a faithful reproduction of the substrate’s appearance but, rather, of the visually initiated statistical estimation and generation of that appearance.”
“These sophisticated operations are carried out instinctively by the brain of animals that diverged from us more than 550 million years ago, well before large brains existed.”
“The generation of 2D skin patterns relies on a motor system that controls the expansion state of up to several million pigment cells (chromatophores) embedded in the animal’s skin, among other specialized cell types.”
“The expansion state of each chromatophore depends on a radial array of muscles controlling the size of a central pigment sac and, therefore, on the activity of one to a few motoneurons, the dendrites and somata of which lie in the animal’s central brain.”
“The generation of a skin pattern therefore results from the appropriate coordination and…
Read the full article here