Montage of awesome cephalopod camouflage clips

Roger Hanlon is a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He studies cephalopods—octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. Specifically, he studies the way these animals change their skin color and texture to match with their surroundings.

I've talked about his research before on BoingBoing Video and showed you some truly astounding footage he shot of a bunch of kelp that suddenly turns out to be a disguised octopus.

In this video segment from NPR's Science Friday, you can see more of Hanlon's videos of camouflaged cephalopods. There's also some great up-close footage of chromatophores—the special cells that allow cephalopods to change their color and shape.

Thanks to Andrea James for sending this over!

Video Link

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: animals • camouflage • cephalopods • Jaw-droppingly awesome • Nature • Roger Hanlon • Science • video

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dayna

Cephalopods, how do they work?
http://www.geekforce.com Hugh Johnson

Chromatophores would be one of the best gene-hacks ever. Think about it…
“Hey baby, check this out!”
http://twitter.com/jbum jbum

Think I’ve seen this before…
miasm

…they appear to have developed an evolutionary strategy for auto-clone stamping.
http://twitter.com/travyeso travis

interesting
pushmonk

Song about the mimic octopus by Steve Burns (the guy from Blue’s Clues) and Steven Drozd (the guy from the Flaming Lips).

http://www.myspace.com/steveburnsstevendrozd/music/songs/mimic-octopus-secret-wizard-of-the-sea-44004782
mtdna

Suck on it evolutionary biologists!
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Schmieding/100000452523362 Oliver Schmieding
  
  yup. after all, it is written that
  “in my time of trouble HE will hide me” :)
cymk

Cephalopods, they’re awesomely delicious!
Jellodyne

Obligatory xkcd
http://xkcd.com/928/
Slightly Askew

For the extremely time challenged, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyGazPZmmM0 and press “2″.
CLamb

So when can we use cephalopod technology for a display?
- http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC
  
  When you can find an octopus with a video connector?
Brainspore

I went on an expedition looking for Mimic Octopus once. We were disappointed that we never found any, but I did notice that we came back with one more scuba diver than we set out with.
Basil R. Lee

Other obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/520/
Jed Goldstone

Maggie-
You’ve had this great series of Woods Hole stories – were you just here as a journalism fellow?
keithfulkerson

PBS has a show called “Kings of Camouflage” with some great footage of cuttlefish doing their stuff: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/kings-of-camouflage.html
http://twitter.com/NoBSSEO NoBSSEO

Scott Rhodie tweeted this earlier and frankly it has to be one of the most amazing clips I have ever seen. Things really aren’t as we see them at all.
noah django

Neat!
Jason Frankish

I love you little Cephalod, come home with me…. wait, where’d you go? ….
Jason Frankish

err, oops, ‘Cephalopod’
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You can edit your comments.
http://twitter.com/Noadi Sheryl

One of the many many reasons I love cephalopods. I also need that xkcd mimic octopus comic as a poster.