What kind of nightmare alien planet do we live on? Last week we looked at wasps performing neurosurgery on cockroaches, this week it’s cuttlefish pretending to be bottom-feeding crabs in order to sneak up on their prey.
Cuttlefish have been caught on film walking like crabs by moving their tentacles in novel ways.
Kohei Okamoto at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, and his team first spotted pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) displaying the unusual behaviour while feeding them in the lab.
“We were surprised to see how closely they resemble hermit crabs,” says Okamoto.
The molluscs would raise their front arms while they bent their other legs, as if they had joints, while quickly moving them up and down independently. Certain parts of their skin also darkened.
Related:
- Earth is an Alien Planet: The Sea’s Strangest Square Mile
- Earth is an Alien Planet: The Mysterious Camouflaging Ability of the Cuttlefish
- Earth is an Alien Planet: The Bigfin Squid is a Minion of Cthulhu
- Jewel Wasps are Neurosurgeons Who Zombify Cockroaches So Their Babies Can Eat Them From the Inside Out
- Carnivora Gardinum: Timelapse Video of Carnivorous Plants
