Distributed light sensing
Squid can really hide well in their environment. It is important for their survival since they have minimal active defenses but how is it important to us? Office of Naval Research thought that it was important enough to grant a $ 6 million grant to Roger Hanlon of Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory to investigate the phenomenon.
The goal of the study is to understand mechanisms by which squid can evade recognition is shallow marine habitats but probably the eventual goal is to make materials that adaptively respond to the environment.
For now, there has been significant work done to record pictures and videos of Cephalopods, analyze them through MATLAB routines to understand how the squid respond. There has been a good analysis of in-situ radiance of hidden cuttlefish and hyper spectral imaging of the fish. Interestingly, since it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of camouflage vs. getting eaten by their enemies, they used human response of cephalopod images as a substitute for effectiveness of camouflage (called crypsis). This begs the question, human may be more evolved but are their eyes and responses even close to other fish ?
A report can be found on the Office of Naval research site (http://www.onr.navy.mil/) and search for squid skin sensor but for fascinating video’s look up Roger Hanlon website: (http://hermes.mbl.edu/mrc/hanlon/).
Note: This website might need updating
