From so simple a beginning

Evolution and Biodiversity

Category: colour

Skilful camouflage artist

6 July 2023 /

Cuttlefish has to search for the best pattern

Common cuttlefish is a master of camouflage

The cuttlefish has an excellent camouflage ability and rapidly modifies its appearance when the background changes. But its change is indirect, Theodosia Woo and colleagues show: the cuttlefish adjusts a new skin pattern a few times before it is good enough.

To defend itself against predators, the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, like many other squids, can use camouflage to blend in with its surroundings. And if a predator still detects it, it sprays ink to block the view.

The common cuttlefish lives in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. Depending on the substrate, such as sand, rocks, or sea grass, it can take on a uniform colour, have a mottled pattern, or have large dark and light skin areas that disrupt its contours. There are countless variations, and the cuttlefish produces an appropriate camouflage against almost any background, Theodosia Woo and colleagues write.

Pigment sacs

This is possible, among other things, thanks to two or three million pigment cells in the skin, the so-called chromatophores. They come in three colours: yellow, red, and brown. The cells are closed sacs with an elastic wall, surrounded by radial muscles. When the muscles contract on command of the brain, they pull the sac open, and the colour becomes visible.

Woo showed how cuttlefish change their appearance by doing experiments in which she provided animals with a changing background; she filmed the skin at high resolution and measured the skin patterns with robust computer software. The result is remarkable. The lightning-fast transition makes it seem as if a cuttlefish realises a new matching skin pattern in one go. But it is not like that.

Confronted with a new background, a cuttlefish immediately starts to adapt its skin pattern. But after a first change, it waits shortly and then adjusts the created pattern to improve it. Then it waits again and adjusts the pattern further, until a satisfying pattern is found. So, it goes through a search process in the blink of an eye and apparently receives feedback continuously. Search trajectories are not fixed, because when the researchers offered the same background change several times, the animals followed different search trajectories and the result was also different. The difference in final skin patterns was so subtle that we cannot observe it.

Reflection

In addition to the pigment cells that were studied here, the squid skin has two more types of neurally controlled cells that enable changes in appearance. There are cells that, thanks to their nanostructure, reflect light of one specific colour, for example blue: the iridophores. And there are cells that reflect all incident light and are white in daylight: the leucophores. In addition, the skin can be smooth or rough. The sophistication of a squid skin is beyond our imagination.

All these possibilities are not only used for camouflage, but also for communication. Common cuttlefish spend spring and summer inshore to spawn, and the colours the animals display then is an attraction for divers.

Colour blind

The greatest puzzle about squids is how they are capable to mimic their environment so perfectly while being colourblind themselves. Almost nothing is known about this, but there is evidence that small light sensitive organs occur in the skin.

Willy van Strien

Photo: Young common cuttlefish. Magnef1 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources:
Woo, T., X. Liang, D.A. Evans, O. Fernandez, F. Kretschmer, S. Reiter & G. Laurent, 2023. The dynamics of pattern matching in camouflaging cuttlefish. Nature, online 28 June. Doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06259-2
Gilmore, R., R. Crook & J.L. Krans, 2016. Cephalopod camouflage: cells and organs of the skin. Nature Education 9(2): 1
Chiao, C-C., C. Chubb & R.T. Hanlon, 2015. A review of visual perception mechanisms that regulate rapid adaptive camouflage in cuttlefish. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 201: 933-945. Doi: 10.1007/s00359-015-0988-5

Super white

27 March 2023 /

Woodcock feathers have the whitest white of all birds

Tail feathers of woodcock are brilliant white at the underside

The whitest feathers that exist can be found in the woodcock, which otherwise has an inconspicuous appearance. Jamie Dunning and colleagues investigated how the surprisingly white hue emerges.

An Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) is so well camouflaged that it hardly stands out against the forest floor on which it lives. But the tips of its tail feathers are brilliant white on the underside and therefore very visible, even in dim light. No plumage exist with patches that are whiter than those feather tips. Jamie Dunning and colleagues show how that super white hue is brought about by the structure of the tail feathers.

Woodcocks rest during the day, and then it is important not to stand out. Hence their mottled brown plumage. At dawn or dusk, they are active. To show themselves to each other, they raise their short tails or make a courtship flight. Then, the bright white tips on the underside of the tail feathers stand out clearly.

Nanostructure

Those white tail tips are conspicuous at dim light because they reflect much of the scarce light that falls on them. This is possible because of a special structure. A bird’s feather consists of a shaft on which barbs are implanted. The barbs of the super-white feather tips of Eurasian woodcocks are flattened and thickened, and, like the slats of Venetian blinds, they are slanted and overlap. As a result, a maximal amount of light is reflected.

But before the light rays bounce back, they are scattered beneath the surface of the barbs. The barbs have a disordered internal structure of nanofibers and scattered air pockets, which causes incident light rays to change direction frequently and chaotically. This strong so-called diffuse reflection results in a bright white appearance, just as happens in snow.

The barbs are held together by the many Velcro-like barbules that branch from them. These are brownish, but because they are on the upper side of the tail feathers, they do not affect the whiteness of the underside.

The Eurasian woodcock lives in Europe and Asia. There are seven other woodcock species worldwide, all with super white tops at the underside of the tail feathers. Other birds don’t possess such white feather patches, not even species that are closely related to woodcocks, such as common snipe (Gallinago gallinago).

Willy van Strien

Photo: American woodcock, Scolopax minor, with raised tail. Matt Schenck (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC BY 4.0)

See also: super black feathers also exist

Source:
Dunning, J., A. Patil, L. D’Alba, A.L. Bond, G. Debruyn, A. Dhinojwala, M. Shawkey & L. Jenni, 2023. How woodcocks produce the most brilliant white plumage patches among the birds. Interface 20: 20220920. Doi: 10.1098/rsif.2022.0920

Crossdressing in white-necked jacobin

5 September 2021 /

Male-like plumage reduces social harassment in females

in white-necked jacobin, males are brightly coloured

Most white-necked jacobin females are distinguishable from males by a less bright colour. But 20 percent of the females looks like a male. Jay Falk and colleagues wanted to know why they deviate from the normal pattern.

In hummingbirds, a bird family with more than 300 species, males tend to be more brightly coloured than females. But in one in four species, some females have a male-like plumage, as reported earlier this year by the research group that Jay Falk is part of. Now, he tried to figure out why these females dress like a male. He discovered that it enables them to forage relatively undisturbed. They experience less harassment of both conspecifics and other hummingbirds.

most white-necked jacobin females are less colourful than males, but some have male-like plumageThat hummingbird females normally are less colourful than males – though they are by no means dull compared to many other bird species – is because they raise the young. If they are on or around the nest, a dull colour provides safety: their predators detect them less easily. Hummingbird males have no such tasks and are free to seduce females. To be attractive, they have flashy colours, which females like.

White-necked jacobin

But in some hummingbird species, females may have a showy male appearance. The white-necked jacobin, Florisuga mellivora, is an example. About 20 percent of adult females has a shiny blue head, white belly and tail and white spots on the neck like males. Would this confer any benefit?

Perhaps also males prefer a brightly coloured partner, Falk thought at first. But that is not the case, as it turned out when he offered males a choice from several stuffed birds: they prefer a female with normal female plumage.

Harassment

Another possibility is that brightly coloured birds are less likely to be harassed when foraging. Hummingbirds are small animals with a high metabolism that need to consume large quantities of food. So, the birds spend a large part of the day foraging, sucking nectar from flowers. Competition over food is high, and they are quite aggressive around flowers with a high nectar content. Continuously, they are trying to chase each other away.

White-necked jacobin females in female plumage lose out, according to observations. Apparently, they are not impressive. They are more often chased off than brightly coloured animals, both by conspecifics and other hummingbirds. Conversely, they are less aggressive themselves. In addition, they are likely to be sexually harassed more often. Females in male’s outfit, on the other hand, can forage relatively undisturbed.

Accordingly, male-like females were found to visit a place where nectar was offered more frequently than females in female plumage, and they stayed longer. So indeed, male plumage in females is beneficial because it reduces harassment.

A white-necked jacobin female with male plumage does not look exactly the same as a male. When the tail is fanned, a black tail band becomes visible that is wider in these females than in males. They also have some green on the tail.

Brood care

There is another indication that male plumage offers protection against aggression: all young are brightly coloured, while young of animal species usually are camouflaged. Male-like plumage also enables young white-necked jacobins to forage without too much trouble.

So, young females are brightly coloured. As they reach adulthood, 20 percent of females retains that colourful plumage, while the majority, 80 percent, switches to a less conspicuous appearance. Why don’t they all keep looking like males if that increases access to food resources?

Probably because it is still true that during the breeding period a female should not be clearly visible, favouring a less bright colour. Young females don’t have that concern yet.

Willy van Strien

Photos:
Large: white-necked jacobin male. Kathy & sam (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC BY 2.0)
Small: white-necked jacobin female in female plumage. Joseph Boone (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources:
Falk, J.J., M.S. Webster & D.R. Rubenstein, 2021. Male-like ornamentation in female hummingbirds results from social harassment rather than sexual selection. Current Biology, online August 26. Doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.07.043
Diamant, E.S., J.J. Falk & D.R. Rubenstein, 2021. Male-like female morphs in hummingbirds: the evolution of a widespread sex-limited plumage polymorphism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 288: 20203004. Doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.3004

Conspicuous, but also undetectable

20 June 2018 /

Brightly coloured frog is invisible against background

Colourful poison dart frog is invisible from a distance

In spite of its bright colouration, predators have difficulty detecting the poison dart frog Dendrobates tinctorius from a distance, according to research by James Barnett and colleagues. The colourful animal turns out to have a cryptic colouration.

The bright colour patterns of poison dart frogs function as a warning signal to predators: don’t eat me, I’m poisonous. Natural enemies learn that they’d better leave these colourful prey alone.

Yet, the striking appearance of these frogs does not offer them complete protection, as James Barnett and colleagues point out. An inexperienced predator that doesn’t yet understand the message may attack and kill such frog. Moreover, some predators are insensitive to the poison, and others are so hungry that they ignore the warning and take the risk. So, a poison dart frog needs additional protection.

It has. Additional protection is provided by the same bright and distinctive colour pattern, which appears to function, surprisingly enough, as a cryptic colour that minimizes detectability. At least, this is the case in the poison dart frog Dendrobates tinctorius.

Camouflage

At close range, the frog clearly stands out against its natural background of leaf litter on the soil of rainforests in French Guiana, the researchers show, thanks to colours that are hardly found in that background: yellow and blue. The salient colouration is a clear signal.

But from a distance, things are different. Predators no longer are able to discern the pattern and the colours blend together to form an average hue that matches the background colour. So, the colouration turns out to function as distance-dependent camouflage; it makes the frog invisible to birds, snakes and mammals that are not at very close range.

Model frogs

That may be hard to believe, but experiments show that it really is like that. The researchers made frogs of plasticine (modelling clay) and gave their models either a natural colour pattern or painted it plain yellow or brown-and-black. They assembled different backgrounds: leaf litter, paper with a leaf litter print, bare soil and paper in a homogeneous colour. In the field, they put model frogs on different backgrounds and assessed how often wild avian predators attacked these models.

As expected, background had no effect on the number of attacks on yellow models, while brown-and-black animals were safer on leaf litter or paper with a leaf litter print than on other backgrounds.

And what about the frog models with a natural colouration?

Just like the brown-and-black animals, they had the best chance to remain undetected on a leaf litter background.

The bright colour pattern of the poison dart frog Dendrobates tinctorius thus has a dual function. At close range, it is a warning signal, while the colours blend to form a cryptic colour when viewed from a distance.

Willy van Strien

Photo: Dendrobates tinctorius. ©James B. Barnett

Source:
Barnett, J.B., C. Michalis, N.E. Scott-Samuel & I.C. Cuthill, 2018. Distance-dependent defensive coloration in the poison frog Dendrobates tinctorius, Dendrobatidae. PNAS, online June 4. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1800826115

Blacker than black

18 January 2018 /

Almost no light escapes from of bird of paradise feathers

many birds of paradise have velvety super black feathers

Many birds of paradise have beautiful colours, the brightness of which partly is an illusion, created by dark feathers that surround coloured patches. These feathers are not normal black, but velvety super black, as Dakota McCoy and colleagues show.

Birds of paradise, which mainly occur in New Guinea, deserve their name. The bird family includes many species in which the males have brilliant colours, wear exuberant plumage ornaments and perform exciting dances. With their spectacular appearance, they try to seduce females.

Black feathers play an important role in their courtship, Dakota McCoy and colleagues write. The black feathers that these birds display are not normal black, but super black: they absorb almost all light – more than 99.5 percent – that falls on it. Against this velvety super black background, blue and yellow colours seem brighter than they really are; it looks as if the colours were luminescent. Such super black material is extremely rare in nature.

Ragged, curled edges

The researchers show that the deep black appearance is brought about by the special surface structure of the smallest components of the feathers. A feather consists of a shaft on which barbs are implanted, and the barbs are densely packed with barbules. Normally, these barbules are smooth and just bear hooks that interlock to make the feather stiff. The black feathers of crows and ravens have such normal barbules, as do the black feathers of birds of paradise that play no role in their show, such as back feathers.

But the barbules of super black feathers are highly modified. They have very ragged, curled edges with which deep, curved cavities in between, and this structure retains almost all light that falls on it. A normal black surface absorbs 95 to 97 percent of the incident light and reflects the remaining 3 to 5 percent. But in the micro jungle of spikes and cavities of super-black feathers, the light hits obstacles that scatter it again and again, and each time part of the light is transmitted into the material, where it is absorbed. Ultimately, less than half a percent of the incident light is reflected, so the feathers look super black for someone who faces the male – for instance a choosy female.

Photo: Victoria’s riflebid, Ptiloris victoriae, courting male. Francesco Veronesi (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Watch paradise birds in a video of BBC Earth, and another one of BBC Earth, and one of Cornell University featuring the magnificent riflebird.

Source:
McCoy, D.E., T. Feo, T.A. Harvey & R.O. Prum, 2018. Structural absorption by barbule microstructures of super black bird of paradise feathers. Nature Communications 9:1. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02088-w

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