Octopus camouflage how does it work

No other animal does anything like this! So to wrap up, here's how an octopus camouflages: It uses its eyes to see the darkness, texture and layout of a scene. Its pupils distort light to get a rough idea of colour. That info is sent from its brain to the eight arm-brains that add colour information from their tiny fibres.

The arms then decide how to tint, deflect and scatter light, while the main brain keeps the system in order. Its skin matches the texture of the surroundings, and the octopus moves into a position to blend in better. If that's not the ultimate ocean superpower, we don't know what is! Plan Your Trip. Special Offers. Online Resources. Things To Do. School Lessons and Outreach. Tourism Professionals. Feeding Times. Conservation Work. Web design and content by Flow Communications.

Search Two Oceans Aquarium Toggle navigation. Finally, a unique way that octopuses use camouflage is by changing the color of their skin. Octopuses can control the color of their skin because they have special cells in their skin that are filled with different colors.

These cells are usually yellow, red or brown, and are attached to small muscles that can change the size of the color cell.

To change the color of their skin, octopuses will make the color cells bigger or smaller by stretching or relaxing their muscles. So, by changing the sizes of all the different color cells, the octopus can very rapidly create complex patterns that allow it to better blend in with its surroundings.

Thus, by changing its shape, behavior and color, the octopus has an array of different camouflage techniques that allow it to successfully hide from even the most the most observant animal or human.

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