Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

I was looking for information about cuttlefish this morning when I came across the following three videos, each of which purports to show a cuttlefish attack.

The thing is, looking at the videos, I don’t really know if I see any attacks. In one cuttlefish video, I see nothing more than a cuttlefish swimming in murky water, with a lot of divers circling around it. In another video, I see a cuttlefish come up to a diver, and then for a second swim quickly toward the diver before darting away. Is that an attack?

In a third video, the caption says that the cuttlefish “hit” his mask, put its tentacles on his regulator hose, and then chased him for ten minutes. However, the caption shows no such attack – or, if the video shows what it’s like to be chased by a cuttlefish, then it seems that only the slowest of swimmers would have anything to worry about. It isn’t exactly a James Bond chase scene.

The lesson I take from these videos is that, when there’s room for interpretation, people like to believe that they’ve been attacked – even by cuttlefish. We seem to prefer that things are out to get us, even if they’re really just taking a look and saying hello.

I’m not saying that cuttlefish don’t behave aggressively toward divers, occassionally. There is another, short video which clearly shows a cuttlefish in something like an attack, though brief, against a camera:

Another video showing such an attack, however, makes me wonder about the context of this kind of aggressive cuttlefish behavior. In this video, two divers are following a cuttlefish, which seems to adopt a warning stance before it briefly rushes at one of the divers. It’s a lesson to divers: When swimming with intelligent animals, don’t chase, or you’ll be told to back off.

That lesson is reinforced by the following video, showing two divers harassing a cuttlefish: