The camouflaging abilities of cuttlefish (
Sepia officinalis) are remarkable and well known. It is commonly believed that cuttlefish—although color blind—actively match various colors
of their immediate surroundings, yet no quantitative data support this notion. We assembled several natural substrates chosen
to evoke the three basic types of camouflaged body patterns that cuttlefish express (uniform/stipple, mottle, and disruptive)
and measured the spectral reflectance of the camouflaged pattern and the respective background using a fiber optic spectrometer.
We demonstrate that the reflectance spectra of cuttlefish skin patterns correlate closely with the spectra of these natural
substrates. Since pigmented chromatophores play a key role in cephalopod color change, we also measured the spectral reflectance
of individual cuttlefish chromatophores under the microscope, and confirm the results from a previous publication reporting
three distinct colors of chromatophores (yellow, orange, and dark brown) on the animals’ dorsal side. Taken together, our
results show that the color variations in substrate and animal skin can be very similar and that this may facilitate color
match on natural substrates in the absence of color vision.
Keywords Color change - Contrast - Spectral reflectance - Chromatophore - Camouflage