The first thing that amazed me was the way they could change colors in no time at all. Cuttlefish use the small sacks on their skin called chromataphors to camouflage themselves from predators and to communicate with other cuttlefish. There is no limitation on the colors they can display, as the chromataphors can create thousands of colors. The way that cuttlefish communicate and mate goes like this: Males spread all of their arms to display to the female using every color they can create. If she seems agreeable, he will lock arms with her and place a sealed pack of sperm into a pouch under her mouth. The capsules burst, the sperm enters the female's mantle, and the eggs are fertilized. Soon after she has mated, another male may try to mate with her and lock arms with her. If he is successful, he will flush out her mantle with water to remove the sperm from the first male and replace it with his own sperm. The second male will then guard her from other male cuttlefish.
The female will then carefully glue each egg to a piece of fire coral or to an underwater cave wall. The number of eggs can vary quite a bit- anywhere from 30-500 eggs may be laid. The eggs are about the size of grains of rice. Female cuttlefish have no maternal instinct- they lay the eggs and leave. Shortly after mating and laying eggs, the female cuttlefish dies. The eggs grow to about the size of a ping-pong ball and become translucent white. The baby cuttlefish is inside of the egg, feeding on a yolk attached to its body. When the baby cuttlefish is ready to leave the egg it finds a weak part of the egg and breaks it open with its mouth. This happens about four months later. From that day on, the cuttlefish is on its own. Baby cuttlefish resemble the adults. Adult cuttlefish live about two to three years.
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