Watch cuttlefish migrate together in a defensive line with a lookout

[Judi Lynn]

LIFE 17 September 2021
By Richard Kemeny

The cuttlefish has a reputation for being a rather solitary cephalopod. But new footage reveals that groups of wild cuttlefish form shoals to migrate, suggesting they are more social than we thought.

Grouping is common across the animal kingdom, providing a range of benefits including help with foraging, fending off predators and meeting to mate. In cephalopods, the behaviour is mostly associated with squids, which form schools of thousands. Cuttlefish, like octopuses, mostly prefer to explore the world on their own, and sightings of social behaviour among them are rare.

Christian Drerup at the University of Cambridge and Gavan Cooke at The Cephalopod Citizen Science Project have collected a series of reports, photos and videos from scuba divers in waters off the south coast of the UK that show 10 examples of shoaling in European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis).

“The literature is very dogmatic about what cephalopods do and don’t do, and you kind of accept that until you see things with your own eyes,” says Cooke.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2290696-watch-cuttlefish-migrate-together-in-a-defensive-line-with-a-lookout/#ixzz76rmVCan0

[XanaDUer2]

1. Interesting nt