Cuttlefish camouflage: a quantitative study of patterning

Shohet, A. J.; Baddeley, Roland; Anderson, John C.; Osorio, Daniel

doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00842.x

Cited by 35 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Most obviously one can test the effects of varying a specific image parameter in the background. Studies have used both printed patterns, such as checkerboards (Fig 1B;Chaio & Hanlon 2001;Zylinski et al 2009a), and more natural substrates, such as sand, gravel and stones (Marshall & Messenger 1996;Shohet et al 2007;Barbosa et al 2008). Patterns have been designed to test the animals' sensitivity to low-level visual parameters, including colour, spatial frequency, contrast, orientation and spatial phase (Marshall & Messenger 1996, Zylinski & Osorio 2011, or local features such as edges, objects and depth cues (e.g.…”

Section: Cuttlefishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Osorio

Cuthill²

2014

Oxford Handbooks Online

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms AbstractCamouflage allows the bearer to 'hide in plain sight' by means of colour patterns that interfere with detection. Basic principles of camouflage that were proposed over a century ago by artists and natural historians have informed recent studies that seek to tease apart the different mechanisms by which camouflage exploits perception. The probability of detection is lowered by matching background colours and textures or using sharply contrasting colours to disrupt the body's outline or salient features such as eyes. The effectiveness of much animal camouflage against humans, even though the patterns evolved to fool different viewers, suggests that diverse visual systems share similar principles of perceptual organization. As such, animal camouflage might reveal universal principles that apply regardless of retinal organisation and neural architecture. We review the recent literature on animal camouflage in this light, from experimental studies of texture perception by fish and cephalopod molluscs, to the visual effects used to defeat figure ground segregation of 2-D and 3-D objects in birds and mammals.

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Section: Cuttlefishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Osorio

Cuthill²

2014

Oxford Handbooks Online

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“…Psychophysical experiments have shown that the size of substrate objects can determine which camouflaged body pattern a cuttlefish will show (e.g. Hanlon & Messenger 1988;Chiao & Hanlon 2001a,b;Barbosa et al 2007Barbosa et al , 2008bChiao et al 2007;Mäthger et al 2007;Shohet et al 2007). Large light objects on overall dark backgrounds (e.g.…”

Section: Visual Background Features That Evoke Uniform Mottle and DImentioning

confidence: 99%

Cephalopod dynamic camouflage: bridging the continuum between background matching and disruptive coloration

Hanlon

Chiao

Mäthger

et al. 2008

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

210

190

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Individual cuttlefish, octopus and squid have the versatile capability to use body patterns for background matching and disruptive coloration. We define-qualitatively and quantitatively-the chief characteristics of the three major body pattern types used for camouflage by cephalopods: uniform and mottle patterns for background matching, and disruptive patterns that primarily enhance disruptiveness but aid background matching as well. There is great variation within each of the three body pattern types, but by defining their chief characteristics we lay the groundwork to test camouflage concepts by correlating background statistics with those of the body pattern. We describe at least three ways in which background matching can be achieved in cephalopods. Disruptive patterns in cuttlefish possess all four of the basic components of 'disruptiveness', supporting Cott's hypotheses, and we provide field examples of disruptive coloration in which the body pattern contrast exceeds that of the immediate surrounds. Based upon laboratory testing as well as thousands of images of camouflaged cephalopods in the field (a sample is provided on a web archive), we note that size, contrast and edges of background objects are key visual cues that guide cephalopod camouflage patterning. Mottle and disruptive patterns are frequently mixed, suggesting that background matching and disruptive mechanisms are often used in the same pattern.

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“…They identified 34 chromatic components in S. officinalis and classified its body patterns into 13 categories (Hanlon and Messenger, 1988). Because the chromatic components have not been identified in S. pharaonis, we used the repertoire of chromatic components of S. officinalis, which shows body patterns similar to S. pharaonis (Shohet et al, 2007) and shares many chromatic components with it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%