It is virtually impossible to camouflage a moving target against a non-uniform background, but strategies have been proposed to reduce detection and targeting of movement. Best known is the idea that high contrast markings produce 'motion dazzle', which impairs judgement of speed and trajectory. The ability of the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis to change its visual appearance allows us to compare...

Cuttlefish are masters of disguise, rapidly changing colour to blend with their backgrounds. A new study shows that they break camouflage to direct warning messages at certain predators, but only those likely to be dissuaded by visual signals.

Cuttlefish are highly visual animals, a fact reflected in the large size of their eyes and visual-processing centers of their brain. Adults detect their prey visually, navigate using visual cues such as landmarks or the e-vector of polarized light and display intense visual patterns during mating and agonistic encounters. Although much is known about the visual system in adult cuttlefish, few s...

The prophenoloxidase (proPO) system catalyzing the melanin production is considered as implicated in the innate immune system in invertebrates. The phenoloxidase (PO)-like activity was detected in the cuttlefish embryo sampled at the end of the organogenesis and few hours before hatching. Various modulators of the PO activity were used to assess the triggering of the proPO activating system. Th...

The aim of this study was to provide a first insight on the incorporation of eight metals in the eggs of the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis via maternal transfer, using radiotracer techniques ((110m)Ag, (241)Am, (109)Cd, (60)Co, (134)Cs, (54)Mn, (75)Se and (65)Zn). The cuttlefish was fed daily with radiolabelled crabs for two weeks; it then started to spawn every three days. Among the eight trace...

The common Chinese cuttlefish (Sepiella japonica) has been considered one of the most economically important marine Cephalopod species in East Asia and seed breeding technology has been established for massive aquaculture and stock enhancement. In the present study, we used Illumina HiSeq2000 to sequence, assemble and annotate the transcriptome of the ovary tissues of S. japonica for the first ...

Antioxidative activities and biochemical properties of protein hydrolysates prepared from cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) using Alcalase 2.4 L and Bacillus licheniformis NH1 proteases with different degrees of hydrolysis (DH) were determined. For the biochemical properties, hydrolysis by both enzymes increased protein solubility to above 75% over a wide pH range. The antioxidant activities of cu...