Transient sexual mimicry leads to fertilization

Hanlon, Roger T.; Naud, Marie-José; Shaw, Paul W.; Havenhand, Jon

doi:10.1038/433212a

Cited by 97 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In the wild, small, unpaired males may obtain 535 matings through nonaggressive surreptitious or deceptive tactics and therefore avoid 536 aggressive encounters with large paired males (Hanlon et al, 2005). However, if a small, 537 unpaired male encounters a lone female, he will pair with her and perform aggressive displays 538 to repel other small, unpaired male competitors.…”

Section: Discussion 423mentioning

confidence: 99%

Giant Australian cuttlefish use mutual assessment to resolve male-male contests

et al. 2015

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Section: Discussion 423mentioning

confidence: 99%

Giant Australian cuttlefish use mutual assessment to resolve male-male contests

et al. 2015

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“…Many studies have suggested that most cephalopods utilize polyandry, which is where a female mates with multiple males during the spawning season (Hanlon and Messenger, 1996;Hanlon et al, 2005). Previous studies have shown that females not only mate with large size males in a group (the consorts) but also mate with other smaller males (the sneakers) using distinct types of courtship behavior (Hanlon et al, , 2002(Hanlon et al, , 2005Jantzen and Havenhand, 2003b;Naud et al, 2004Naud et al, , 2016Iwata et al, 2005;Wada et al, 2005;Iwata and Sakurai, 2007;Huffard et al, 2008;Sato et al, 2014). These results suggest that males of different sizes may adopt different strategies in order to gain access to females and that females may during the same process choose different males in order to maximize their reproduction success.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Analysis of Dynamic Body Patterning Reveals the Grammar of Visual Signals during the Reproductive Behavior of the Oval Squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana

2017

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Cephalopods use a diverse range of body patterns for visual communication. Each pattern is composed of several distinct chromatic components that are under neural control and are expressed dynamically. In the oval squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, males use distinct body patterns to interact with females and other males at the spawning site. To systematically examine their visual signals during reproductive behavior, an ethogram of 27 body pattern components produced by S. lessoniana was observed in both the wild and captivity; these were then characterized. Five behaviors were commonly seen among these reproductively active squids, namely parallel swimming, male guarding, male-male fighting, male-parallel mating, and male-upturn mating. Each behavior was found to be composed of the expression in a temporal sequence of different chromatic components. By analyzing the dynamic body patterning time series associated with each behavior, it was found that a certain subset of components was expressed simultaneously or sequentially in response to conspecifics. Importantly, the results not only revealed that each behavior is composed of multiple chromatic components, but the findings also showed that each component is often associated with multiple behaviors. To gain insight into the visual communication associated with each behavior in terms of the body patterning's key components, the co-expression frequencies of two or more components at any moment in time were calculated in order to assess uniqueness when distinguishing one behavior from another. This approach identified the minimum set of key components that, when expressed together, represents an unequivocal visual communication signal. While the interpretation of the signal and the associated response of the receiver during visual communication are difficult to determine, the concept of the component assembly is similar to a typical language within which individual words often have multiple meanings, but when they appeared together with other words, the message becomes unequivocal. The present study thus demonstrates that dynamic body pattering, by expressing unique sets of key components acutely, is an efficient way of communicating behavioral information between oval squids.

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“…Cuttlefish visual signalling systems have received substantial attention, not only because they are spectacular, but the rate at which signals can change is exceptional [8 -10]. This rapid ability to change both the colour and texture of the skin is employed for camouflage and for communication [11]. Thus, the cuttlefish display seems to be a system in which cheating could potentially be rife.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the cuttlefish display seems to be a system in which cheating could potentially be rife. Observations of the giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama), for example, have shown that small males can mimic females as part of an alternative mating tactic that is successful in nearly half of all attempts [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It pays to cheat: tactical deception in a cephalopod social signalling system

2012

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Signals in intraspecific communication should be inherently honest; otherwise the system is prone to collapse. Theory predicts, however, that honest signalling systems are susceptible to invasion by cheats, the extent of which is largely mediated by fear of reprisal. Cuttlefish facultatively change their shape and colour, an ability that evolved to avoid predators and capture prey. Here, we show that this ability is tactically employed by male mourning cuttlefish ( Sepia plangon ) to mislead conspecifics during courtship in a specific social context amenable to cheating 39 per cent of the time, while it was never employed in other social contexts. Males deceive rival males by displaying male courtship patterns to receptive females on one side of the body, and simultaneously displaying female patterns to a single rival male on the other, thus preventing the rival from disrupting courtship. The use of tactical deception in such a complex communication network indicates that sociality has played a key role in the cognitive evolution of cephalopods.

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Transient sexual mimicry leads to fertilization

Cited by 97 publications

References 9 publications

Giant Australian cuttlefish use mutual assessment to resolve male-male contests

Giant Australian cuttlefish use mutual assessment to resolve male-male contests

Quantitative Analysis of Dynamic Body Patterning Reveals the Grammar of Visual Signals during the Reproductive Behavior of the Oval Squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana

It pays to cheat: tactical deception in a cephalopod social signalling system

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