Massive Originals
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Cephalopods are forcing us to rethink what it means to be colorblind
Octopuses, squids and cuttlefish should technically be colorblind. So how do they camouflage so well?
Stories We Love
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Giant Squids, Giant Eyes, but Rather Small Brain Lobes
"This is the first time we get to have any information about what the world might look like to a giant squid, and that’s just super cool."
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The Giant Squid’s Biggest Mystery
Deep below the sea surface, giant squid fight off predatory sperm whales–stirring legendary tales of epic battles. Yet for all it’s infamy, discovering how many of these enormous cephalopods are lurking in the ocean has remained impossible…until now. Using simple arithmetic, Elizabeth Shea, Curator of Mollusks at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, along with colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution try to solve the mystery – with unfathomable results!
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It’s small. It’s striped. It’s looking for love. Meet the lesser Pacific striped octopus. Full-time biologist—part-time cephalopod matchmaker, Richard Ross invites us into his secret home lab where he studies the mating rituals of these tiny cephalopods.
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Watch cuttlefish apparently pretending to walk just like crabs
It could be a strategy to deter predators by making them think soft cuttlefish have a hard shell, or trick prey into thinking they're harmless.
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Eight smart limbs plus a big brain add up to a weird and wondrous kind of intelligence.
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Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith review – the octopus as intelligent alien
"If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over."
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Their intelligence is all the more striking because it has evolved completely independently of the line that gave rise to us: our last common ancestor—perhaps some simple, slug-like creature—lived well over 540 million year ago.
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There's a growing body of evidence that cuttlefish are smart enough to assess the relative strength of their opponents to gauge their odds before fighting. They modify their behaviors – including their skin patterns – accordingly.
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Male cuttlefish filmed fighting over a female for the first time
Researchers have previously witnessed this behavior in the lab, but this is the first time it's been caught in the wild.
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You're Not Hallucinating. That's Just Squid Skin.
Octopuses and cuttlefish are masters of underwater camouflage, blending in seamlessly against a rock or coral. But squid have to hide in the open ocean, mimicking the subtle interplay of light, water, and waves. How do they do it?
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Squid Communicate With a Secret, Skin-Powered Alphabet
"Their body plan is so bizarre compared to ours that it’s hard to compare their brain structure and function to something that we know."
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In changing oceans, cephalopods are booming
Cephalopods are known for rapid growth, short lifespans, and extra-sensitive physiologies, which may allow them to adapt more quickly than many other marine species.
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Scientists capture video of dolphins risking death to eat octopus
Zombie. Tentacles.
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Octopuses Do Something Really Strange to Their Genes
"Humans don’t have this. Monkeys don’t. Nothing has this except the coleoids.”