The eyes of cephalopods like octopus, squid, and cuttlefish possess only one kind of photoreceptor, implying that they are colorblind, being able to see only in greyscale. But wait! They are famous masters of camouflage, being able to blend with their surroundings, and they signal each other ... If that's the case, how does the octopus know what color it must change its body to? Turns out they aremostly sensitive to the polarization of the lightand can differentiate the polarization of different lights better than humans.
One possibility is that in its ... octopuses attempt to match the object itself.Octopuses would need to have an innate knowledge that grass is green, sand is yellow, etc., and then adjust the brightness accordingly.... May 11, 2023 -The most obvious reason such a soft-bodied animal would change color is to hide from predators—and octopuses are very good at this.
They can change not only their coloring, but also the texture of their skin to match rocks, corals and other items nearby. They do this by controlling the size of projections on their skin (called papillae), creating textures ranging from small bumps to tall spikes. February 20, 2024 -This “rectilinear” bias likely helps octopuses pick out prey swimming in a horizontal direction or predators moving downward.
While many other underwater creatures adapted to see a wider section of the color spectrum than humans, cephalopod adaptation took a different turn. July 9, 2016 -The unusual pupils of cephalopods (from the top, a cuttlefish, squid and octopus) allow light into the eye from many directions, which spreads out the colors and allows the creatures to determine color, even though they are technically colorblind. June 26, 2023 -Octopuses, squids and cuttlefish use their weird eyes to exploit this phenomenon, they break up light and then focus on different parts of it separately - even though all they see is grey, they know what colour it isbecause of know much it bent.
If that's the case, how does the octopus know what color it must change its body to? Turns out they aremostly sensitive to the polarization of the lightand can differentiate the polarization of different lights better than humans. April 5, 2021 -A team of scientists at the University of California Berkeley believe octopuses and other cephalopods mayuse focus (rather than cones) to determine colorrather than seeing the color as humans do. January 9, 2017 -Octopus cyanea) can rapidly change its color, texture, and skin pattern to match its surrounding environment bymanipulating specialized pigment-containing cells called chromatophores
