TY - JOUR
T1 - Camouflaging in a complex environment-octopuses use specific features of their surroundings for background matching
AU - Josef, Noam
AU - Amodio, Piero
AU - Fiorito, Graziano
AU - Shashar, Nadav
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the support of Ben-Gurion University's Marine Biology and Biotechnology program and the Inter University Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat for logistical support. We are grateful to the cephalopod group in the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn for their warm hospitality. Special thanks to the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority for monitoring the capture, maintenance, and release of the octopus. We are grateful for the contributions of B. Alon, A. Lerner, K. Levi, S. Maccusker, E. Yanowski, P. Amodio, C. Talbot, Y. Schnytzer and O. Polak, who provided constructive suggestions and discussions along the way, and Z. Livnat, who donated high resolution images for our study.
PY - 2012/5/23
Y1 - 2012/5/23
N2 - Living under intense predation pressure, octopuses evolved an effective and impressive camouflaging ability that exploits features of their surroundings to enable them to "blend in." To achieve such background matching, an animal may use general resemblance and reproduce characteristics of its entire surroundings, or it may imitate a specific object in its immediate environment. Using image analysis algorithms, we examined correlations between octopuses and their backgrounds. Field experiments show that when camouflaging, Octopus cyanea and O. vulgaris base their body patterns on selected features of nearby objects rather than attempting to match a large field of view. Such an approach enables the octopus to camouflage in partly occluded environments and to solve the problem of differences in appearance as a function of the viewing inclination of the observer.
AB - Living under intense predation pressure, octopuses evolved an effective and impressive camouflaging ability that exploits features of their surroundings to enable them to "blend in." To achieve such background matching, an animal may use general resemblance and reproduce characteristics of its entire surroundings, or it may imitate a specific object in its immediate environment. Using image analysis algorithms, we examined correlations between octopuses and their backgrounds. Field experiments show that when camouflaging, Octopus cyanea and O. vulgaris base their body patterns on selected features of nearby objects rather than attempting to match a large field of view. Such an approach enables the octopus to camouflage in partly occluded environments and to solve the problem of differences in appearance as a function of the viewing inclination of the observer.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84861413640&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0037579
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0037579
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84861413640
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 7
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 5
M1 - e37579
ER -