Squid’s Got Ink: The Perception of Squid Ink by Conspecifics and Predators
“When the Sepia is frightened and in terror, it produces this blackness and muddiness in the water, as it were a shield held in front of the body.”
- Aristotle
Over time, animals of prey have developed characteristics that assist them in fleeing from dangerous predators. Their escape responses sometimes involve certain distinct behaviors directed at the predator that increase the probability of survival, such as the innatured death faking of the opossum. Some animals have evolved to release secretion cues which when detected by conspecifics enhance their chances of escape. Coleoid cephalopods display both behaviors. When endangered by predators, this species group…show more content… The ink resembles the shape and coloration of the squid and for all purposes can be considered a pseudomorph, which visually deceives the predator. Chemically, phagomimicry, amongst other things, tricks the predator into believing it has already caught the squid. The notion that ink acts as an alarm cue between members of a shoal is still undeveloped. Proof of visual perception serving as the mechanism for the alarm cue is, arguably, well supported. Squids will demonstrate escape behavior when conspecific ink is released in an adjacent aquarium, showing that the squid do not have to chemically sense the ink to react to it. However, chemoreception of the ink as a chemical cue needs more research to become conclusive. The experiment that supported the hypothesis that the olfactory organs in squid can be used for chemoreception of chemicals in conspecific ink was very conditional. Firstly, the researchers main concern was to prove that the olfactory organs of squid can be used for chemoreception, not that ink is a chemical cue for fellow squids. Secondly, the researchers pipetted the ink millimeters away from the olfactory organ to induce a response. The ink was propelled much closer to the olfactory organ of a squid than it likely ever would from a shoal member in a natural setting. I would test the chemoreception of ink as a conspecific cue and hypothesize that ink chemically causes escape behavior in fellow
