# Can Octopus see with their eyes?



## AquaticPulse (Jun 19, 2011)

*Can Octopus see with their SKIN?*

The guardian - Octupus skin contain light sensors

"in the Journal of Experimental Biology shows that octopus skin contains the pigment proteins found in eyes, making it responsive to light..."

tl;dr - We're not certain if octopus chromatophores act as light sensors, mechanical receptors, or both.










"Despite apparently being *colour blind*, they use their eyes to detect the colour of their surroundings, then relax or contract their chromatophores [specialized cells that change colour on command] appropriately, which assume one of three basic pattern templates to camouflage them, all within a fraction of a second"

I thought this was awesome and cool:

_Evolutionary biologists Desmond Ramirez and Todd Oakley of the University of California, Santa Barbara therefore removed patches of skin from 11 hatchling and adult bimac octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides), mounted them onto Petri dishes with insect pins, and used light emitting diodes to shine light of different wavelengths onto the skin preparations. They noticed that the *chromatophores expanded quickly, and remained expanded, pulsating rhythmically, when exposed to continuous bright white light. By contrast, red light caused slow, rhythmic muscle contractions, but not chromatophore expansion...*_"


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