Scientists have found cuttlefish using a new communication method: sign language.
The researchers noticed the cuttlefish using four different types of arm movements and found that the animals might use these to communicate through both sight and touch.
“The cuttlefish is a master of camouflage,” says author Sophie Cohen-Bodénès in a video describing their findings. It also uses “body postures and movements of the arm for communication.”
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Cuttlefish sign language
Along with colleague Peter Neri, Cohen-Bodénès identified four different types of arm wave sign: up, side, crown and roll.
When doing the up position, the cuttlefish waves its arms upwards in front of its face as if doing a cephalopod facepalm. For side, it swishes its arms to one side like an elephant’s trunk. In the so-called crown posture, the cuttlefish bends its arms together so the tips touch each other.
The roll sign involves the animal curling its arms under its head as if it’s about to launch into a forward roll. “The roll sign is funny,” says Cohen-Bodénès. “The cuttlefish even changes the shape of its head and eye resembling an octopus.”
In the first experiment, the scientists showed a cuttlefish a video of other cuttlefish doing different signs. “We were amazed to observe a cuttlefish waving back at the video of arm waves,” she says. “We could hence demonstrate that the signs are perceived visually.”
“The cuttlefish even changes the shape of its head and eye resembling an octopus."
They also wondered if cuttlefish making these signs might also send a vibration that could be detected by their lateral line – a special organ that senses movements in the water around them.
“To test this hypothesis, we recorded the trace emitted by the arm wave with a hydrophone, which is a microphone used to record sound underwater,” she says. When they played this back, “we were amazed to observe a cuttlefish waving back at the hydrophone with all the possible combination of signs,” she says.
Coller Dolittle Challenge
The work has been chosen as one of four projects shortlisted for the Coller Dolittle Challenge for Interspecies Two-Way Communication – a prize set up by the Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University. Every year, the most promising research team will be given $100,000 and an overall Grand Prize of USD$10million is also on offer.
Cohen-Bodénès and Neri are up against three other projects. One team (led by Laela Sayigh and Peter Tyack from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) has identified 20 distinct types of whistles used by dolphins for communication.
Another group (led by Daniela Vallentin of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence and Jan Clemens of the European Neuroscience Institute) has developed an AI model for analysing nightingale whistles.
The third shortlisted project (led by David Omer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has found that marmoset monkeys can identify each other by name.
The four finalists will present their research to the public and a judging panel in May to plead their case to win the Challenge’s $100,000 prize.
“We still can’t have a conversation with the animals who share our homes, says entrepreneur Jeremy Coller who founded the Jeremy Coller Foundation. “But these finalists show that, in many other ways, we are tantalisingly close to cracking the code of interspecies communication.”
Video and image credit: Sophie Cohen-Bodénès and Peter Neri
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