UWWorld News

Cephalopod's known to the rest of us as Squid, cuttlefish and octopi.

One thing which has always been able to make a dive special for me is seeing a squid, cuttlefish, or octopus. Even a distant glimpse on one has provided a special thrill for me. I always sensed something special about these animals. The first time I saw a cuttlefish was so thrilled beyond words. In the first place it was completely unexpected. I had seen pictures of them and knew what they were. But they seemed so odd that I assumed that they must exist some place far from anywhere that I could ever go. Like 300 feet deep of something.

So here I am one day diving with my friends at South Sea Divers in Sabang, Mindoro, Philippines and low and behold here is this big cuttlefish. We watched him a while before he scuttled off in his unique backward swimming motion. Yes they can swim in any direction but they often swim backwards looking where they have already been.

Many of these special encounters are documented by pictures I have taken. Some of these pictures are on this website. As I continue my education about the underwater world I have found out a lot about these unique creatures that has served only to increase the thrill I get from seeing them.

Their eyes can see the polarization of light. Wow! In my pictures you can see the unique shape of the pupil in their eye. To be able to determine how light is polarized, this is like a whole extra sense a complete new dimension of vision. These incredible animals use this sense in a variety of ways. They use it to find prey and to hide from their own predators.

Their skin contains three distinct sets of abilities which on a land animal would seem nearly supernatural. One, they can change the texture of their skin to match or contrast their surroundings. Two, they can alter their skin color and pattern at will. They can do this very quickly. Indeed it can be startling to see it. They have these chromatophores which are groups of cells in the skin which can squeeze red, yellow, brown or black pigments from deep sacs to near the surface. They can change their appearance completely just as quickly as I can change the channel on the TV using the remote. Three, they have another layer of skin called the iridophore layer. The Iridophore layer can act as a mirror of it can produce bright metallic colures. The animal uses all of these together for both communication and concealment.

Blood: their blood uses Copper rather than iron to bind the oxygen, that's right, cut a Cephalopod and the blood, will be green. Each Cephalopod has three hearts, one heart to pump the blood to each gill and one heart to pump the blood to the body.

Neurological: The Cephalopod's Neurological System has no feedback loop in the arms. When an octopus brain gives a command to an arm it tells the arm what it wants done not how to do it. It is up to the peripheral neurons in the tentacle to compute a way to accomplish the mission assigned by the brain. No other class of animal, that I know of, does this.