Dynamic Skin Patterns in Cephalopods

Cephalopods are unrivaled in the natural world in their ability to alter their visual appearance. These mollusks have evolved a complex system of dermal units under neural, hormonal, and muscular control to produce an astonishing variety of body patterns. With parallels to the pixels on a television screen, cephalopod chromatophores can be coordinated to produce dramatic, dynamic, and rhythmic displays, defined collectively here as “dynamic patterns.” This study examines the nature, context, and potential functions of dynamic patterns across diverse cephalopod taxa. Examples are presented for 21 species, including 11 previously unreported in the scientific literature. These range from simple flashing or flickering patterns, to highly complex passing wave patterns involving multiple skin fields.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Frontiers in Physiology

• Publication date

  2017-06-19

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fphys.2017.00393PMID 28674500PMCID 5474490
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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