Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
Speaker 1: is Alison an't like the science center at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And you know, today
Speaker 1: we are talking about like what is probably the most
Speaker 1: boss animal in the entire ocean. We're talking about and
Speaker 1: also the cutest, the cuttlefish. The cutest. I would like
Speaker 1: to cuttle up to cuttleish, wouldn't you. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they look kind of like, uh, there's something kind of
Speaker 1: like kitten like about them when you see him at
Speaker 1: the aquarium. Indeed, I do think kittens when I see
Speaker 1: cuttle fish. Yeah, Like you know how like like a
Speaker 1: cattle can of like ball up and be like a
Speaker 1: little you know, a little handful of cat. Well, it's
Speaker 1: like like cuttlefish kind of have that look going on
Speaker 1: most of the time, you know, and they're they're hovering
Speaker 1: around and their little their little tanks and and you know,
Speaker 1: changing colors wildly. It's it's amazing stuff. Yeah, we get
Speaker 1: interested in cuttlefish back when we did life um in
Speaker 1: the beginning of two thousand ten, we did all sorts
Speaker 1: of interesting articles on cuttlefish, and one of them was
Speaker 1: this really amazing sequence in Life in which the videographers
Speaker 1: had a pretty tough task. Yeah. Yeah, they were trying
Speaker 1: to you know, they have all this footage that they
Speaker 1: shot on the ocean floor and and it's not you know,
Speaker 1: when you go down on to the ocean Florida to
Speaker 1: shoot something like cuttlefish mating, it's not just like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna turn on the camera and then when we
Speaker 1: turn it off we have our footage. No, it's like
Speaker 1: shooting stuff here and there, and you know, and it's
Speaker 1: it's all out of sequence, and it's like shooting a movie, right,
Speaker 1: And then you get it back, you hand it over
Speaker 1: to the editors and they start trying to piece it together.
Speaker 1: And there's a pretty tricky factor here those because they're
Speaker 1: changing colors. It's like one second, this uh, this cuttlefish
Speaker 1: is small and white, and then it's like it's changed
Speaker 1: it's texture, it's dark purple, and it's over here, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's all happening in the space of seconds. So yes,
Speaker 1: imagine if you were like the you know, the editor
Speaker 1: on a film, and you were you had shot like
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise. But Tom Cruise kept like morphing into other people,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're like, oh, well his range isn't
Speaker 1: that soul. But occasionally he does morph into another person,
Speaker 1: you know, and yeah on Oprah or you know, interview
Speaker 1: with the Vampire or something. You know, it's like, but
Speaker 1: but what all that was happening, you know, in the
Speaker 1: space of like one shoot. Yeah, So cuttlefish can be
Speaker 1: hard to track, much like Tom Cruise. Yeah, they're amazing animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a hundred and twenty species of cuttlefish. And uh,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming a lot of people out there have seen
Speaker 1: this guy. Either you've seen him in uh or her
Speaker 1: in on a YouTube video, or you've you've you watched
Speaker 1: Life you know especially yeah, or you've seen him at
Speaker 1: seen him at a various aquarium. So like here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I know we've had them, Um for different periods. You
Speaker 1: were seeing aquarium. You're saying you saw him in Monterey, right, Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: my wife and I went out to California recently and
Speaker 1: we went to the Monterey Aquarium and we had a
Speaker 1: gotta we we gotta special treat when we popped in there,
Speaker 1: because the cuttlefish were actually breeding and depositing eggs. So
Speaker 1: it was like super magical. We almost skipped over it.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, cuttlefish, Well, we're about ready to go.
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen cuttlefish before, but we ain't even
Speaker 1: gett ended up getting sucked in by you know, the
Speaker 1: colors and the cuteness and lo and behold they were breeding.
Speaker 1: It was it was awesome. They also have some really
Speaker 1: cool cuttlefish up at the aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Good
Speaker 1: to know, Good to know. Um eyes, Their eyes are amazing, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there they have. They're highly developed, like like a lot
Speaker 1: of the cephalopods, and they have these W shaped pupils.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing is they're color blind, but like
Speaker 1: a lot of animals that live on the depths of
Speaker 1: the ocean floor, they're great with low light. So when
Speaker 1: you think about it, humans are you know, we have
Speaker 1: pretty good vision and we can do cool things like
Speaker 1: we shape our lenses to zoom in. But the cuttlefish
Speaker 1: can actually reshape its entire eye, which I found fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Uh. And then of course tentacles or arms.
Speaker 1: Tentacles and arms, that's a major feature. They tend to
Speaker 1: have some sort of um, you know, slipped together. It
Speaker 1: kind of look you know, it's kind of almost like
Speaker 1: a It reminds me of like a hairstyle or something.
Speaker 1: You know. They have them slipped together almost into like
Speaker 1: a beak shape, you know, very aerodynamic and I'm thinking mohawk.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's but they have they have eight sucker
Speaker 1: lined arms and two tentacles. Those are the longer deals
Speaker 1: to grass prey or or to grasp other cuttlefish, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on what the altercations. Yeah. Yeah, it's also used
Speaker 1: in breeding. Yeah, and they have a beak, which apparently
Speaker 1: freaks Josh Clark out for some reason. Yeah. They did
Speaker 1: recently did a podcast on octopi and uh and apparently
Speaker 1: Josh was just freaking out over the fact that cephalopods
Speaker 1: have have little beaks. We don't. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: kind of understand Josh's concerned on this one. I tend
Speaker 1: to think of beaks being associated mostly with land animals.
Speaker 1: Land they ye like, so it's not creepy if a
Speaker 1: bird has a beak, but if if a cephalopod has
Speaker 1: a beak, and it's crazy. Yeah, I think it's My
Speaker 1: wife finds like beaks and birds to be really creepy,
Speaker 1: like especially big big birds, not big bird, but like
Speaker 1: large birds. Like you know, if you got to like
Speaker 1: to our Thomas a little restaurant here in the line
Speaker 1: where they have cages outside with like two cans and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: like that freaks her out because I think all she
Speaker 1: can think about her like like them sort of like
Speaker 1: pecking your eyes with their big beaks or or you know,
Speaker 1: their little black tongues. Yeah, there's a freaky scenario. Birds are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they also have a little little hover skirt
Speaker 1: kind of a fin. Yeah. The fin is really awesome
Speaker 1: because it's like like a single kind of wavery fin
Speaker 1: thing that like curves all the way around there. They're
Speaker 1: they're they're behind and uh and it does it just
Speaker 1: kind of like undulates, you know, and uh and they
Speaker 1: get a massive amount of maneuverability with that. They can
Speaker 1: pretty much move in any direction, you know, at the
Speaker 1: drop of a hat. It's it's it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you really get a hovering sensation watching them. They're just
Speaker 1: kind of like drifting or just hanging in one spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is until they fire up the jet propulsion. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and that happens when they suck the water into their
Speaker 1: mantle cavity and then they force it back out through
Speaker 1: the funnel. And that's just the opening located right under
Speaker 1: the head. So they do this when they want to
Speaker 1: change direction speed and it kind of swivels the funnel
Speaker 1: or it narrows it to intensify that blast of water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. They're gonna awesome that they have jet propulsion.
Speaker 1: It is. Don't you wish you had jet propulsion? Um?
Speaker 1: Not really? You know, you see your editor coming towards
Speaker 1: you with a red lined draft of a paper you
Speaker 1: work so hard on. You know what, I don't feel
Speaker 1: like dealing with us. You turn on the jet propulsion,
Speaker 1: you high tail it at Well, okay, I would go
Speaker 1: for the jet propulsion provided I had another defense mechanism.
Speaker 1: That the cuttlefish has um And again this is another
Speaker 1: thing it squares it shares with certain squid, and that
Speaker 1: that is that it has an ink sac. All right, um,
Speaker 1: but but here's the thing that's really amazing. All right,
Speaker 1: everybody knows that like an ink sac. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: the a squid or a cuttlefish can create like a
Speaker 1: smoke screen of ink and then fleet the scene all right,
Speaker 1: that's that's nothing compared to their The secondary use of
Speaker 1: the of the ink, and that is to create what
Speaker 1: is called a pseudomorph. It means false form, and it's
Speaker 1: basically bubbles of ink surrounded by mucus, and it's they
Speaker 1: shoot it out and it kind of occupies the same
Speaker 1: amount of space that the squid with that the that
Speaker 1: the cuttlefish would be in. But here's the deal. Right
Speaker 1: before they shoot it out, they turn really dark, so
Speaker 1: that the cuttlefish turns really dark, shoots out this black
Speaker 1: mass that's roughly the same shape and right right, and
Speaker 1: then the cuttlefish turns like white and then uses the
Speaker 1: jets to speed away. So then the press so the
Speaker 1: predator sees this dark cuttlefish jump, you know, speeds in
Speaker 1: to eat it, and then the couple fish you know,
Speaker 1: cuts out, and then the attacker ends up biting into
Speaker 1: this big blob of ink and mucus. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: I had that defense, and you were to bring me
Speaker 1: some paper that I didn't want to deal with at
Speaker 1: the moment, I would just you know, I hit the inks,
Speaker 1: drop a pseudomorphic, and then get out of there, and
Speaker 1: then you'd be you'd be having this conversation about the
Speaker 1: about this latest draft, with this big pile of inc communcus. Also,
Speaker 1: my sense of smell would be temporarily parallels because the
Speaker 1: inc can contain dopamine and a precursor to dopamine. Some
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there confused and I have no sense of smell,
Speaker 1: and Robert has gone, He's fled the scene. See these
Speaker 1: the couple wish have it figured out. These are just
Speaker 1: amazing creatures and we're not even we're not even halfway
Speaker 1: through without everything that's that's cool about them. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just like it's like if you went to
Speaker 1: a car dealership to buy um, like an animal, or
Speaker 1: you know, your local cephalopod dealership, and you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: show me something that's just just has it, just has
Speaker 1: all the features. They would pull out the cuttlefish because
Speaker 1: these guys just have everything. Well, not to mention their brain, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are these are pretty uh smart creatures, pretty braining creatures. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They have one of the largest brain to body size
Speaker 1: ratios of any invertebrate out there, and uh, as active predators,
Speaker 1: they really need that brain to kind of help them
Speaker 1: react to their environment and you know, even learn some
Speaker 1: new tricks. Yeah, and it kind of comes down to
Speaker 1: like they need that big brain because again, they have
Speaker 1: a lot of really cool features. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawkings wheelchair, Um, which I'm so curious to see
Speaker 1: where you're going with. Well, this is a fact that
Speaker 1: I I meant to mention in our Stephen Hawking podcast
Speaker 1: and it's just going to try to work it into
Speaker 1: the tuttle Well no, it just was not a conscious effort.
Speaker 1: But but now Stephen Hawkings wheelchair has like all this
Speaker 1: like crazy computer stuff on it, you know, because he
Speaker 1: depends on it to comm know, to communicate and he's
Speaker 1: just constantly plugged in. Yeah, wait, what are you saying
Speaker 1: that IBM send some spanking new fantasy periodically. Yeah. Someone
Speaker 1: may have to correct me on that, but I'll believe
Speaker 1: fits right. He gets the latest tech, it's my understanding,
Speaker 1: But he also needs the equivalent of a car battery
Speaker 1: to run it all, whereas like a normally you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a powered wheelchair would have a less robust battery.
Speaker 1: So the cuttle fish is in a position where it
Speaker 1: has a lot of really awesome features and it needs
Speaker 1: a high you know caliber brain. Tip to run it all.
Speaker 1: It's not reading books or anything, but it's so you
Speaker 1: think it's supercharged when it comes to things like camouflage.
Speaker 1: They never they don't have a cuttle fish on record
Speaker 1: of reading Tolster or anything like that. Huh. They might
Speaker 1: they might be doing some audio books. You know. You
Speaker 1: hear these voices on the Adego books. You never really
Speaker 1: see these guys that could it could be a cuttlefish. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the brain is also really important in directing
Speaker 1: the pigment producing cells and and directing its camouflage activities
Speaker 1: Tolstoy camouflage, you know. Yeah, before we get into the
Speaker 1: camouflage hardcore though, just a couple other quick anatomical facts. Um,
Speaker 1: they're obviously they're really cute animals. And they have three hearts,
Speaker 1: which may or may not be related to the cuteness,
Speaker 1: but it is more likely related to the fact that
Speaker 1: they need two hearts to pump their blue green blood
Speaker 1: to the gills and one to circulate oxygenated blood to
Speaker 1: the rest of the body. They can't hear them, I really,
Speaker 1: but they do detect sound in the form of pressure waves,
Speaker 1: and how do they do that? By the way, have
Speaker 1: some handy lateral at the dermal lines, they feel like
Speaker 1: the wave pressure. I think that's why I thought, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's the way it works. Um and again
Speaker 1: before we we're getting to the camouflage. But just a
Speaker 1: couple of other interesting things about them. Size. When it
Speaker 1: comes to the size of these cuttlefish, the smallest species
Speaker 1: grows to be about three inches long, and I believe
Speaker 1: these are typically like occupied like sort of tidal areas,
Speaker 1: like tidal pool areas. And then the largest of the species,
Speaker 1: which is called the broad club cuttlefish, which sounds like
Speaker 1: a real thug of a of a sea creature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the club, I think is what gives you that broad
Speaker 1: club cuttle fit like it takes the you know, we
Speaker 1: think of cuttle we think of you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: like kittens spooning each other something. But but but and
Speaker 1: so you think of that when you when you elliot,
Speaker 1: you know, I know it's not the same just to
Speaker 1: clare yet it's a different word. But then when you
Speaker 1: throw broad club on there, it's like they just totally
Speaker 1: throws it out and those suckers can get too, to
Speaker 1: be like five and a half feet long. And then
Speaker 1: the the common cuttle fish is more than the three
Speaker 1: foot range. I'm also excited that there is a species
Speaker 1: known as um Feefer's flamboyant cuttlefish. Those are the guys
Speaker 1: that are able to um kind of walk along the ocean.
Speaker 1: They're apparently the only type of cuttle fish that kind
Speaker 1: of walks along. And then they're really cool looking. They're
Speaker 1: very I don't know the pictures I saw, they were
Speaker 1: kind of a dark red kind of thing, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're cuttlefish, so I imagine that changes depending on,
Speaker 1: you know, seasonal fashions. Yeah, they're fickle, those cuttlefish. So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit of about their camouflage. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can, like we said, they can change from like
Speaker 1: white to purple and a flash. Uh. They appear to
Speaker 1: sort of pulsate with light, you know, the very magical
Speaker 1: looking iridescent, and then the very um surface of their
Speaker 1: skin can sort of change, like it'll look look, you know,
Speaker 1: just soft to the touch at one at one point,
Speaker 1: and then it'll kind of creakle into this, uh, this
Speaker 1: rocky surface and you know, just again it happened so subtly,
Speaker 1: like if you're watching them in a tank, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like a trick of the eye almost because because
Speaker 1: I mean they'll do like a quick flash here and
Speaker 1: there where those are Suddenly there are different colors, Suddenly
Speaker 1: their texture changes. But a lot of it's just really subtle,
Speaker 1: like a mood ring or something. Yeah, and all that
Speaker 1: awesome camouflage action is controlled by the chromatophores, which we
Speaker 1: kind of just mentioned, and those are just the pigment cells,
Speaker 1: and a heck of a lot of pigment cells too.
Speaker 1: We're talking ten million, as many as ten million, so
Speaker 1: if you think about that per square millimeter, that's roughly
Speaker 1: two square millimeter, so that's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: And they have these muscles that are attached to the
Speaker 1: chromatophores and they tighten and relax to control which color
Speaker 1: is displayed. Cool, and then the changeable texture that I
Speaker 1: was talking about, that's due to bundles of muscles that
Speaker 1: that are that are also under the skin that changed
Speaker 1: the surface. So that's that's another component of the disguise.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like if I were in a
Speaker 1: bad mood, I would definitely want that spiky surface, you know,
Speaker 1: stay away from me. I'm feeling kind of spiky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could I can see that being the case. It
Speaker 1: would be like imagine, well, let's let's get through the
Speaker 1: next component and then we'll imagine what life would be
Speaker 1: like if we had these abilities. Because they also have
Speaker 1: these reflecting plates. Um underneath, yeah, underneath the chromatophors, and
Speaker 1: that's the where you get that, like I said, that
Speaker 1: irridescent reflection kind of thing going on. Those have a vocabulary,
Speaker 1: so all that color comes in handy to communicate. You're
Speaker 1: not necessarily highly social, but they are able to communicate
Speaker 1: as many I think as forty different signals biologists have identified. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've they've identified like forty different you know, combinations of
Speaker 1: color and texture and all that that seemed to mean
Speaker 1: a certain thing in the cuplefish world and between cuttlefish. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, vocabulary is a nice comfy human term
Speaker 1: we throw at it. But but yeah, forty different different signals.
Speaker 1: For instance, UM display, zebra display. Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: one do this? By the way, I've definitely seen photos
Speaker 1: of it, but it seems like when I see him
Speaker 1: in tanks. No, I think I think I have seen
Speaker 1: a zebra display. Right, So, zebra display, you want to
Speaker 1: watch out because that's basically communicating I'm a mail, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to do get out. Yeah, it's like humans have
Speaker 1: their I think all animals have their zebra displays. They
Speaker 1: just what is the human zebra display? How do we display?
Speaker 1: How do humans display anger? Well? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: kind of see a zebra display on Marta sometimes, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see like the dude that's kind of like
Speaker 1: that's um, he'll kind of like he'll put it like
Speaker 1: a small bag in the Marta seat next to him
Speaker 1: and he kind of sits there was like kind of
Speaker 1: a tough guy. Look, you know, it's it's silly in
Speaker 1: this all body language and all, but it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: I'm a dude, don't sit next to me. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm tough. Don't mess with me kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you make eye contact for a second and
Speaker 1: it kind of holds your glance and then you look around,
Speaker 1: you look away real fast. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: The stink ye if you will, I guess the stink
Speaker 1: ey is more of uh like it's not really it's
Speaker 1: a different thing. You guys, MS you should be in
Speaker 1: the studio with us, because Robert just trying to do
Speaker 1: the stink eye, which was kind of funny. But yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine if though you like our our daily lives, I
Speaker 1: mean we again we have body lane, which we have
Speaker 1: our our our facial like micro expressions. But imagine like
Speaker 1: were like super pronounced and we you know, we communicated
Speaker 1: through flashes of color and and and weird textures and
Speaker 1: and iridescent displays. It would be pretty pretty amazing. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's a there's one group of researchers from Woods, yeah,
Speaker 1: Woods Whole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts that are looking
Speaker 1: into the possibility that that that that that that iridescent
Speaker 1: display relates to this thing they call light polar polarization signaling.
Speaker 1: That means that there's just there's like an entirely different
Speaker 1: layer of communication. It's like a very subtle communication that
Speaker 1: they're pulling off between each other based on the kind
Speaker 1: of shimmering uh displays that you see go on and
Speaker 1: with their skin. So we might be picking up the
Speaker 1: obviously were display, but there's another signal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: do the subtext I guess, you know, to the cuttlefish subtext.
Speaker 1: I like them. So one of the most interesting signs
Speaker 1: that for aggression that they have is that the peace signal?
Speaker 1: You're telling me about this? This is cool? So they
Speaker 1: hold up the two uh fingers are arms. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: hold up a couple of the arms, um and kind
Speaker 1: of and it looks a lot like like right now,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm holding up two fingers like I'm doing the
Speaker 1: peace signal, um, the peace sign and uh. Apparently if
Speaker 1: they're if they're in a situation where they're trying to
Speaker 1: intimidate somebody, reward off something, if the colors don't work,
Speaker 1: they'll raise those two uh, those two arms up. So
Speaker 1: you'll have divers apparently that when they're diving down and
Speaker 1: dealing with cuttlefish as a lark, they will they'll they'll
Speaker 1: give the peace sign to the cuttlefish and the cuttlefish
Speaker 1: will give the peace sign back. Though they're totally different meanings.
Speaker 1: The you know, the the human diver is doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, out of humor and out of a sense
Speaker 1: of peace. He doesn't want to harm the cuttlefish. Generally,
Speaker 1: I would out, and the cuttlefish is saying, stay the
Speaker 1: heck away from me. Yeah, wellmo, I'm gonna blast you
Speaker 1: with the pseudomorph if you don't watch out, buddy, I
Speaker 1: love the pseudomorphos. That's amazing. People would probably be a
Speaker 1: pretty good band name too. Let's talk about the mating though.
Speaker 1: This is really where the cuttlefish shines. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: pretty pretty awesome. And there's a whole segment on life
Speaker 1: that deals with this from the Underwater Creatures episode. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of a gender bender, Yes, it is a
Speaker 1: gender bender. Like it basically breaks down to in the
Speaker 1: male In the world of male cuttlefish, you kind of
Speaker 1: have two types of dudes. You have the big it's
Speaker 1: kind of like you've ever seen those like the cartoons
Speaker 1: of the old, like nineteen fifties type of things where
Speaker 1: you have the wormy guy on the beach and he
Speaker 1: goes out there with his girlfriend and then the big
Speaker 1: muscle dude kicks sand on him. Well, that's that's the
Speaker 1: same thing that's going on here. We have the big,
Speaker 1: beefy cuttlefish that are out on the beach to pick
Speaker 1: up a chick. And then there's the wormy dude that
Speaker 1: you know, might have brought his his book, you know,
Speaker 1: with him to read his his you know, sci fi
Speaker 1: collection or something um. And so, so those are the
Speaker 1: two guys out there vying for the for the females.
Speaker 1: So when it comes down to muscle, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: one winner, of course, right right, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be the broad beefy guy. But that's not to say
Speaker 1: that the female cuttlefish won't let the the more petite
Speaker 1: male approach. And the petite male has to be really
Speaker 1: careful about this because nobody wants to get beat up
Speaker 1: cuttlefish style or in real life. Yeah they can really,
Speaker 1: I've seen some images of them tearing it up down there,
Speaker 1: and they can get pretty vicious in their their their fights.
Speaker 1: So the smaller size cuttlefish will change its colors to
Speaker 1: reflect the coloration of a female, yeah, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like make himself small and submissive posturing type, you know,
Speaker 1: and it will get real close to the female, the
Speaker 1: mate that it has identified, and that's how it wins
Speaker 1: the battle. And that's really how the broad beefy guys
Speaker 1: and the you know, smaller, petite, perhaps more intelligent gender
Speaker 1: bender cuttlefish coexis. Yeah, and because it's like both both
Speaker 1: variants of the cuttle fish are important for the survival
Speaker 1: of the species. So yeah, you have the big the
Speaker 1: big b female cuttlefish will be hanging out there with
Speaker 1: the the the female it hopes to mate with, and
Speaker 1: then it sees this other female. It thinks it's a
Speaker 1: female coming over, and it's like, oh, that's great, maybe
Speaker 1: i'll mate with that one next, not knowing that that
Speaker 1: is a male coming over to totally steal his lady. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the female is a smart one here, she's perpetuating the
Speaker 1: broader genetic pool. Yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's also
Speaker 1: important taken to account the way they mate. The male
Speaker 1: uses the modified arm to transfer his genetic material into
Speaker 1: the female's bogle area sounds yeah, and the part of
Speaker 1: her mouth that stores the males uh spermatophors for use later.
Speaker 1: Like she actually then takes the this kind of like
Speaker 1: packaged prepackaged sperm and then puts it on the eggs later.
Speaker 1: So you know, if she has like a little from
Speaker 1: column A and a little from column B, then that's
Speaker 1: great because she wand up having this mixed offspring that
Speaker 1: will can be both you know, the smaller sleeker um
Speaker 1: you know, stealthier dudes and the big tough ones. So yeah,
Speaker 1: why limen your options, ladies. Yeah, and and then she'll
Speaker 1: of course want to keep that protected, so she'll store
Speaker 1: her eggs and you know, in rocks or in a
Speaker 1: nice handy discarded shell or something like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and that's again like I've got we actually got to
Speaker 1: see those, uh, those those eggs when we went tom
Speaker 1: on Hoey. It was really really cool. Yeah. I also
Speaker 1: advise going over to the Life site and we're in
Speaker 1: discovery if you're at all interested in the cuttlefish, are
Speaker 1: learning a little bit more about these guys in action,
Speaker 1: because it really is amazing footage. And hats off to
Speaker 1: the men and women who captured this on film because
Speaker 1: again I cannot imagine how complicated it must have been
Speaker 1: to sort out all the different characters and the cuttlefish drama.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and the results are just completely splendid. Like
Speaker 1: just definitely definitely check check it out if even if
Speaker 1: you only check out like some some video on the site,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And and also on the site, we
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of articles that that that we
Speaker 1: wrote and put together. Uh. Like for instance, I interviewed
Speaker 1: Life producer Neil Lucas about this very scene, and he
Speaker 1: was the one who told me the whole story about
Speaker 1: the editing woes and uh, and he had a lot
Speaker 1: of just you know, funny things to say about you know,
Speaker 1: his experience with the Cuddle. That was a fun project.
Speaker 1: Gual talked to a lot of cool BBC producers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a lot of fun. Got got to making
Speaker 1: a lot of phone calls to the UK. Do you
Speaker 1: want to move into a listener man, Yes, um, I
Speaker 1: actually have a really cool one here and it's a
Speaker 1: response to our to a recent episode we did about
Speaker 1: Sniper's Military Snipers. So this comes from Gabriel in Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker 1: He says, Hi, all, I just finished hearing the episode
Speaker 1: on Snipers, and you should know that the sniper duel
Speaker 1: versus Sniper Wolf referenced in the show actually happened in
Speaker 1: Metal Gear Solid one. We're talking about video games here,
Speaker 1: not to I must have said it was too And
Speaker 1: speaking of which, that duel was recreated in Metal Gear
Speaker 1: Solid four, where you were locked in Mortal Kombat with
Speaker 1: crying Wolf while evading our soldiers in Blizzard conditions. The
Speaker 1: other difference is that she can smell you. Coming. Definitely
Speaker 1: give that game a try. It's excellent if you like
Speaker 1: sniper duels and metal Gear. Uh, the one in in
Speaker 1: Metal Gear solid three is in my opinion, the best
Speaker 1: one um and he says actually nerd lecture aside. I
Speaker 1: love this podcast, which is definitely one of my faiths.
Speaker 1: I did have a question though, how do they calculate
Speaker 1: how many calories food has? And how do they determine
Speaker 1: how much activity it takes to burn one off? I
Speaker 1: love the Gabriel is kind of a man of wide
Speaker 1: ranging interests. Well, I feel like a lot of our
Speaker 1: interest I mean a lot of our our listeners have
Speaker 1: to be because you know, we're talking about snipers one day,
Speaker 1: and then it's cuttlefish and then it's composting, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's kind of a renaissance men. It's so anyway, Gabriel,
Speaker 1: thank you for straightening me out on my metal gear.
Speaker 1: Because play that game, Robert part back. I've got too
Speaker 1: many games I have to play. It's just I'll never play.
Speaker 1: So if you guys want to connect with us on
Speaker 1: video games, cuddlefish or hey snipersh to send us an
Speaker 1: email at science Stuff at how stuff first dot com
Speaker 1: or look at up on Facebook. Yeah we're on Facebook
Speaker 1: as stuff in the Science Lab, and you'll find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter as lab stuff. That's all we got, guys,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com. Want
Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
Speaker 1: house stuff works dot com home page