Saturday Morning Awesome -- Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish are one of the more awesome animals on the planet. So, for the Saturday Morning Awesome, I figured a quick video of the Flamboyant Cuttlefish (Metasepia pfeferri) would fit the bill. This versatile subject matter counts as a "Little Dudes" post, a Random Biological Tidbits post, and a Saturday Morning Awesome as well. Efficient, no?

Here is some info from The Cephalopod Page:

Metasepia pfefferi is found in shallow (3 to 86 m) waters from Indonesia, to Papua New Guinea to the north shore of Australia, South Queensland to Western Australia. They are typically found ambling along (see below) on mud, sand or low energy coral rubble bottoms.

In the summer of 2006 three of us, the founders of MarineBio.org headed to Indonesia. I was there for three weeks specifically to observe and photograph cephalopods. During this trip, despite many dives, I was able to find and photographed only two of these amazing animals.

These remarkable cephalopods are active during the day. They slowly “walk” across the seafloor using their arms and flaps on their mantle; this type of locomotion has been called “ambling”. Normally camouflaged, the beautiful colors that give this cephalopod its common name are warning colors and are displayed when the animal is disturbed, See this video. Recently, scientists discovered that these warning colors are not a bluff, the animal is indeed toxic.

Enjoy awesome, smart, toxic little dudes,

Bp

[via Estu, photo credit at the Cephalopod Page]