Cephalopods: Masters of Camouflage

Rob: One of my favorite sightings underwater has to be Cephalopods. The one’s we see on a regular basis are better known as Octopus and Cuttlefish. They have developed some fantastic defense techniques for protection. They can change body shape and texture to help them blend in with the environment and right before your eyes they can change color within a split second which is spectacular to watch. I have added two of my videos to watch which catch some brilliant octopus and cuttlefish behaviour.

This video of an octopus swimming is one of my personal favorites. I have watched it many times and each time I am amazed at the speed of the color changes but also the agility of how it moves in the water either by crawling, swimming or propulsion. Normally you just see an octopus’s head sticking out and when you get closer they soon disappear into the smallest holes imaginable . So it was nice to see one on the move so much. It was taken at Palong Bay, a beautiful reef wall on the West side of Phi Phi Ley. It’s not very deep here with a maximum 16 metres and in the afternoon makes for a great dive site as the sun penetrates the corals. My friend Anya had the camera first but I selfishly took it from her and followed the octopus.

This is a video of a cuttlefish face-off! The cuttlefish is a slower mover which is perfect so you can get very close to these animals. Through out the season its amazing as we get to see them mating and January is great as we can spot them placing their eggs safely in crevices in the rocks. The video of the cuttlefish was shot at Hin Daeng at around 10 mtrs. The Cuttlefish had all its tentacles under a crevice was it eating or placing eggs - I could not see as the Lined Butterflyfish kept biting him. How amazing to watch the change of colors and the reaction of the cuttlefish. If you watch the video clip closely at around 1 minute 30 it looks like the Cuttlefish eats the two Butterflyfish.

Also at Hin Daeng we spotted a Leopard Shark, Ghostipefish, a school of 50 Batfish and a circling school of Yellowtail Barracuda, not to mention a 15 minute display from a Manta Ray which was a perfect ending for me. This dive was all in 18 meters of water, who needs to go deep hey?