December 5th: Cuttlefish
Often at Christmas or the festive period in general, there
will be mention of some sort of animal with bizarre or even magical properties.
Robins that can summon the end of the season of Winter, reindeer that can fly and
seemingly violate multiple laws of time and space, sheep that are able to look
after themselves if their herders decide to wander off and look at a messiah,
donkeys that can carry a heavily pregnant woman for days on end, and Turkey’s
that can seemingly resist being cooked no matter how long they spend in the
oven.
But all of these are in the realm of fantasy (except the
turkey one). What about animals that seemingly have miraculous properties while
sticking to the laws of science? Well, one such incredible creature is the
cuttlefish.
The cuttlefish is, for want of a better term, freakish (by
human standards, of course). First off, it’s not even a fish, it’s a mollusc.
So it’s practicing deception before we’ve even encountered it.
Anatomically, the cuttlefish is as alien and weird as you’d
expect from a sea-bound invertebrate, but perhaps even more so. They have 8
arms and 2 tentacles (these are different things in cephalopod terms
apparently, tentacles are longer and only have suckers on the tips, unlike arms
which have them all along their length). So they have a choice of manipulative
limbs, as opposed to our 2 crappy arms, which are both essentially the same.
They communicate via a very impressive ability to change the
colour and polarisation of their skin via cromatophores, in ways that will
leave a chameleon looking like about as impressive as a Windows ’95
screensaver. The detailed resolution they can achieve on their own skin can
rival modern inkjet printers, making this an extremely sophisticated form of
visual communication, which they can control. This is sort of like typing
writing a text message by having to manipulate each individual pixel into the
correct alignment. Anyone who’s ever had an etch a sketch for Christmas will
know that humans aren’t really up to this level of manipulation.
In terms of visual communication using their own bodies, the best
humans can do is sign language. But bear in mind, cuttlefish also use their
skin patterning abilities to camouflage and avoid predators. This is like
humans putting their hands over their eyes doing the ‘you can’t see me’ thing
when under attack, and the attacker agreeing and going away.
Also worth pointing out, cuttlefish can turn their skin a
wide variety of different patterns, but they can’t actually see colour. So how
they know what they’re doing is anyone’s guess. They can see polarised light
and we can’t though, so swings and roundabouts.
Cuttlefish are also highly intelligent, potentially
poisonous, have way better eyes than we do and have multiple hearts and greenblood, the latter making them some sort of potential Time Lord/Vulcan
amalgamation. Cuttlefish ink even led to the colour scheme of sepia. So every
modern graphics programme and digital camera pays homage to the cuttlefish.
Apple would kill for that level of influence.
All in all, it’s lucky they’re aquatic creatures and stuck
in the sea, otherwise they’d be a real threat to humanity. It should be fine
though, so long as humans don’t do anything stupid like raising the sea levels.
But why would Cuttlefish have a grudge against humans, what
have we ever done to them? Sure, we eat them, but we eat everything, and they
even eat each other, so that’s not something they can have a go at us for.
Well, it turns out that cuttlefish are also unique in nature
for possessing a cuttlebone, a specialised rigid internal structure that allows
a cuttlefish to control its buoyancy via complicated system of siphons. This
cuttlebone used to be used to make jewellery and polish, sometimes in
toothpaste. But these days, we use it primarily to provide calcium for caged
birds.
Cuttlefish are some of the craziest, smartest, most capable
organisms on Earth, and we slaughter them en masse so we can have slightly
shiner teeth, and so our budgies don’t get brittle bones in those legs they
rarely use.
You know when you’ve gone to extreme lengths to
create/acquire the most perfect, impressive or just downright spectacular
Christmas present you can for someone? And they just shrug and throw it aside,
but say they’ll use the box to keep their potatoes in or something? Imagine if
they did that, but gleefully attacked you with a chainsaw to get the box from you.
That’s essentially what we do to cuttlefish on a daily
basis. When they do rise up and kill us all, I can only hope they do it swiftly and mercifully.
Twitter: @garwboy
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