Why I Love Cuttlefish
SCHAFER & HILL/GETTY IMAGES
I think I owe everything to cuttlefish. I know that seems ridiculous. Afterall, how could I possibly owe my whole life to small, eight-armed, oceanic invertebrates? Bizarrely, cuttlefish, the weird, lovely creatures that they are, shaped my elementary school, which determined my high school, college, and graduate studies. My love of cuttlefish set me on the path to being a research scientist, and if I hadn’t been a grad student in Northern New York, I’d never have met my wife. I guess it shouldn’t be all that shocking, because for years, cuttlefish were my life.
On different occasions, I’ve worn a custom made cuttlefish hat and cuttlefish sweatshirt. At the age of seven, I photocopied the parts about cuttlefish from different books and encyclopedias, and scrapbook them together with some of my personal notes, just to have a guide on hand if someone needed to know something about cuttlefish. Somehow, I’ve never been sure how it happened, but somehow one of my teachers managed to design a field trip to a local university just so I could see the little cephalopods in person. It was during second grade, I was sporting my cuttlefish sweatshirt and a blond bowl cut, and while I’d like to think I was quietly in awe of the magnificent beasts, I’m sure I was just spewing cuttlefish knowledge at everyone who walked into earshot. And I stood over a huge tank of water, deafened by the churning filters, and saw cuttlefish in all their glory. It was one of the greatest days of my life.
Most people, unfortunately, only experience cuttlefish through parakeet cages. If you’ve ever seen a pet bird rubbing its beak against a white bone that looks kind of like a tiny surfboard, that’s a cuttlebone, their internal shell. If you don’t know them from bird cages, the color sepia (also the camera filter) is the color of cuttlefish ink, and some people (barbarously) eat them. Fortunately, I fell in love with cuttlefish, because how can you not fall in love with them? Sure, they’re kind of strange looking, and they have creepy ‘w’ shaped eyes, and they’re squishy, but they’re unbelievably cool! First of all, they have eight arms and two extra tentacles that they shoot out to catch prey. Second, they can change the color and texture of their skin at will, to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings, or to put on a horrifying, hypnotizing display that dazzles crabs for easy snacking. Third, cephalopods (like cuttlefish, octopus, and squid) are so intelligent and unlike anything else on earth, that scientists have published legitimate scientific papers about them being from outer space.
I could (and have) talk about cuttlefish all day. For example, I could talk about how their brains are distributed in their different arms making whatever conscious experience they might have completely alien to us (imagine if your arms had a semi-independent brain). Or I could talk about how they can change the polarization of their skin (polarization of light is a property that humans can’t see) as well as the pigment of their skin, which scientists hypothesise allows them to communicate in ways that are hidden from other species. But instead of that I want to talk about what cuttlefish mean to me. I love cuttlefish because they’re amazing, but even all these years later, I keep coming back to them.
The heart of science isn’t the scientific method. That’s the core methodology. It’s the process that we take (loosely) to go from observation to knowledge, but the heart of science is observation. It is looking at something and thinking, That’s amazing! I need to know more! Long before I became a scientist through education and vocation, cuttlefish made me into a scientist. For me, they are the key to all scientific endeavors, which must strike the balance between knowledge and awe. Science isn’t like a magic trick. Understanding how it does or doesn’t work can’t take away the magic, because of the awe inspired by what we interact with in the world. I know that cuttlefish are able to change their color by contracting and expanding the melanin in their cells, but seeing it happen is still breathtaking. Awe keeps us looking for more. Somehow, cuttlefish can change their color but as far as we know they have no color vision. We have no idea how they are able to perceive color, but obviously they can, and if we ever figure out how they do it, that’ll be amazing too. On my best days in the lab, I have both the drive to seek out new knowledge and understanding, as well as the capacity to be in awe of the light that I use. With cuttlefish I never have to try.
Finally, my inherent, luminous love of cuttlefish inspires me to look at everything in the same way that I look at them. I want to know everything I can about their skin and their eyes, how they communicate and how they live, because I know that every rabbithole is going to be exciting and rewarding. Throughout my life, I’ve moved from obsession to obsession, diving headfirst into some new hobby or area of knowledge. Inspired by cuttlefish, I want to be able to treat the whole world as one of my obsessions, to see the wonder in the lichen that grows on a half buried rock, or in the light that catches a glass sitting on my kitchen table, or the sound of wind stirring the trees. And most importantly, I want the way I appreciate people to mirror the way I appreciate cuttlefish, seeing the infinite depth of everyone and excited to learn more about how they think and experience being. We all are fearfully and wonderfully made, and deserve my utmost interest and attention. I know it's hard to look at others that way. Often, I'm not very good at having that sort of attention. Sometimes, I'm no good at it at all. It might even be practically impossible, but I want to try to see everything and everyone one with that intense balance of curiosity and awe with which I see and love cuttlefish.
