What makes a Marine Biologist scream? Find out by watching this video….
While involved in a study in the Caribbean, Roger Hanlon filmed a great video of an octopus camouflaging itself several times on the seafloor in an attempt to elude Roger and his cameras. He followed the octopus for about an hour while the octopus repositioned himself on the ocean bottom and using a number of techniques to conceal itself.
Hanlon was studying how camouflage works in cephalopods (squid, octopus, and cuttlefish). “They are the animals best known to go anywhere in camoflague. No animal comes even close to the speed and diversity of appearances on this animal”, says Roger.
“This is the only animal group we know of that has fine control of its skin to create the bumpiness”. They match their skin dimensionality by sight, which is especially interesting since the octopus is color blind.
Take a look at the video below, where the octopus almost completely conceals its appearance using techniques such as color and texture matching and the famous “I am a rock” trick.
Enjoy!
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