{"id":35184,"date":"2024-01-05T17:01:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T16:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1b6ccc03-c92f-4928-9a19-20d4e69b3a39"},"modified":"2024-01-05T18:35:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T17:35:39","slug":"10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know\/","title":{"rendered":"10 cuttlefish facts you may not know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learn all about the amazing colour-changing cuttlefish <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Friday, 05 January 2024 at 16:01 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Discover these fascinating facts about the colour-swapping cuttlefish, one of the world’s weirdest fish <\/a><\/strong><\/p>

10 cuttlefish facts<\/h2>
Cuttlefish<\/strong> can grow<\/strong> to<\/strong> nearly<\/strong> a metre long, reaching a weight of up to 16kg.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have some of the most impressive courtship routines in nature. Big males adopt a striking zebra-stripe pattern on one side of their body to ward off rivals, while simultaneously displaying an attractive mottled pattern to a female on the other \u2013 quite a feat. But what if you\u2019re not a large male able to scare off competitors? Some little \u2019uns ingeniously turn a dappled colour, round out their body shape and act very demure, exactly like a female.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish<\/strong> can change colour<\/strong> in 200 milliseconds, as fast as a human can blink.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have W-shaped pupils<\/strong>, which are thought to help control the intensity of light entering the eye.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have three hearts<\/strong>, two of which pump blood to its gills, while the third circulates blood around the body.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have blue<\/strong> blood<\/strong>, so-coloured thanks to the copper-rich protein it contains known as hemocyanin, which transports oxygen around the body. (Mammal blood is red due to its iron-rich haemaglobin, which does the equivalent job.)<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have eight<\/strong> arms<\/strong>, which are designed to grasp prey and for use in self-defence, plus two feeding tentacles.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish have a doughnut-shaped<\/strong> brain<\/strong>, boasting the largest brain-to-body ratio of all invertebrates.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish can squirt<\/strong> clouds of<\/strong> ink<\/strong>, using brown ink stored in an ink sac, to create a smokescreen and escape predators.<\/li><\/ul>
Cuttlefish might dream. Recently, researchers filming European cuttlefish in the lab observed short periods during their sleep-like states where individuals would erratically change colour and body pattern, and make irregular eye and arm movements. This strange behaviour, which was not repeated when awake or during inactive periods of \u2018sleep<\/a>\u2019, wasn\u2019t triggered by any external stimuli and was very different from normal cuttlefish activity. Do cuttlefish dream? No one knows, but we have our first clue.<\/li><\/ul>
Do fish sleep?<\/a><\/li>
Do fish pee?<\/a><\/li>
Weirdest sea creatures <\/a><\/li><\/ul>
<\/strong><\/p>
<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Learn all about the amazing colour-changing cuttlefish <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":35185,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know.jpg",2478,1654,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-768x513.jpg",768,513,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/01\/10-cuttlefish-facts-you-may-not-know-2048x1367.jpg",2048,1367,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Learn all about the amazing colour-changing cuttlefish","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/35184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}