Page 85 - Caribbean Reef Life Demo

210
S uid can be very social animals and are often found in groups of dozens of individuals in shallow waters. They can swim either forwards or backwards and tend to align themselves with the rest of the group. Like their octopus cousins, they have eight arms. They also have two longer hunting tentacles with suckers at the end, used for holding onto prey such as sh and shrimp. They often camou age themselves in soft corals to ambush prey. If threatened, a s uid releases a cloud of black ink as a visual smokescreen. Adding mucus keeps this ink together, creating a visual mimic, or pseudomorph, that the predator attacks instead.
S uid have large light-sensitive eyes that help them to hunt at night, the largest eye-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom. Their skin is covered with pigment cells called chromatophores. As each cell is activated, pigments are s ueezed towards the surface of the skin. This allows them to communicate with other s uid. If an extra burst of speed is needed, they have a jet-like siphon below their eyes.