They kept several squid in a tank and cleaned half of the tank, leaving the other half covered in algae. Credit: Ryuta Nakajima/ OIST.įollowing this observation, the researchers performed a controlled experiment. Footage captured at OIST's Marine Science Station shows that squid have an amazing ability to color-match the substrate in order to avoid predation. They noticed that the animals were changing color depending on whether they were over the cleaned surface or the algae. The researchers were cleaning their tank to remove the algal growth. But the researchers suspected that when they move closer to the ocean floor, it would be a different story entirely.Īt OIST's Marine Science Station, the oval squid were, almost accidentally, observed camouflaging to the substrate for the first time. In the open ocean, they are light in color, meaning that they blend into the ocean surface and flickering sunlight above. This squid, locally known as Shiro-ika, is one of three oval squids found in Okinawa. But since 2017, scientists in the OIST Physics and Biology Unit have been culturing a species of oval squid in captivity. Squid tend to live in the open ocean, are notoriously hard to keep in captivity, and have thus been overlooked for this kind of research. Previous studies on cephalopod camouflage have mostly been conducted on cuttlefish and octopus. "If substrate is important for squid to avoid predation, then that indicates that increases or decreases in squid populations are even more tied to the health of coral reef than we thought." Ryuta Nakajima, OIST visiting researcher. "Squid usually hover in the open ocean but we wanted to find out what happens when they move a bit closer to a coral reef or if they're chased by a predator to the ocean floor," explained one of the three first authors, Dr.
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