오천만 년의 미스터리, 오징어의 위장술
오천만 년의 미스터리, 오징어의 위장술
Finally tonight, one of nature’s mysterious wonders. We think of cuttlefish, if we think of them at all, as suppliers of ink to flavored pastas, or bones for the bottoms of bird cages. But our Robert Cruitch always thinks differently. And he explores the amazing mystery of cuttlefish survival in the ocean.
You are looking at maybe the tastiest lunch in the ocean, says marine biologist Roger Hamlin. “Everything is trying to eat it.” And has no shell or anything? “There’s no shell and no protection.” The cuttlefish, this is a cuttlefish, has become a master of disguise. And they do this by consciously manipulating their skin. “Exactly, the skin is really quite magical. So they’re tricking their predators through their skin patterns.” And may have gotten so good at disappearing into pretty much any background. We thought we let a cuttlefish. Well, show off a little.
So here he is on a suddenly very pebbly bottom and he becomes perfectly pebbly and now….”Our special three-handed technician is going to rein in rocks from heaven and the animal looks at the white rocks and immediately changes its pattern into what we call “a disruptive camouflage pattern.” So it’s got white rocks on it? “Yes, it’s created a white rock there. One there, and one here.”
But now let’s go one step further. If you put a cuttlefish against stripes that never occur in nature, then what happens? “We asks the same question because frankly didn’t know. “Well, first it tries very skinny black stripes, and then maybe to better match the background, it switches to fatter black stripes. And later in an extra noble effort to extend like a line….”It lifts its arms straight up.” Trying to look more like a stripe. “That’s exactly right. So it’s getting the posture right.” And to see if it would change its posture, Roger changed the angle and so did the cuttlefish.
But the strangest thing about a cuttlefish is that while it can do all of this, it can’t perceive colors! “As far as we know, they can’t tell one color from the other. So how do they achieve colorblind camouflage? This is a truly question for which we have no answers this far.” But they’ve been doing for 50 million years somehow. Robert Cruitch, ABC News.
And maybe we should check up on that again. Say 50 million years from now. That is World News for this Thursday. I’m Charley Gibson. And I hope you had a good day. For all of us at ABC News, have a good night.