Cuttlefish 'talk' with their arms, study reveals
93 comments
·May 6, 2025fudged71
It took me a while to find, but here is a BestOf Reddit comment from 16 years ago where a user Saydrah discusses communicating with Cuttlefish for an hour with her fingers https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/TBfh8u9MGX
autoexec
The linked photo of the cuttlefish "greeting" gesture no longer exists where it was, but you can still see it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20071027131254/http://www.thepas...
thinkingtoilet
I'm impressed you remembered and found a reddit comment from 16 years ago. +1 internet points
fudged71
This would make my wife laugh so hard. If only I could remember more important things!
tejtm
javascript free clickers,
can replace "www" with "old"
post is unarchivedIIAOPSW
Uncannily similar
asimpleusecase
“Well that,” said Polynesia, brushing some crumbs off the corner of the table with her left foot—“that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they use their breath or their tails or their feet instead.
Dr Dolittle’s Parrot explaining how to learn “animal language”. Voyages of Dr. Dolittle , chapter 8
go_elmo
Super cool! Imo kind of makes sense - think these sort of problems (communication) are general across actors and science seems to confirm some cases (between plants / funghi, cuddlefish, mamals..). Were not as unique as we think & thats freeing.
nfgrep
Interesting, The Mountain in The Sea is becoming a reality.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59808603-the-mountain-in...
NonHyloMorph
I see, so they share that with there main predator... Italians
asmodeuslucifer
I watched one checking me over when I was skin diving in about 3 feet of water. It was hard to see, because it had a rippling pattern of light and dark lines on its back that matched the sunlight through the waves.
enneff
This is so cool to see. When I used to do a lot of SCUBA diving I would sometimes have long staring competitions with cuttlefish. Of course it’s impossible to know for sure, but I always got the sense there was a lot going on behind those eyes.
damnitbuilds
So if I drum my fingers on the table, and my colleague gets visibly annoyed by it, these researchers think I am "talking" to him ?
542354234235
If I flip you off for being annoying, I would definitely be communicating something as specific as if I’d used words.
rad_gruchalski
Yes, you’ll communicate your emotional immaturity. With words we might be able to solve the problem.
stronglikedan
There's nothing immature about flipping people off. In fact, it's quite healthy. Sometimes words fail, but flipping off never does.
7thaccount
Don't forget about sign language.
karn97
Most HN posters were bullied in schools for being weird werent they
lucyv
The word "talk" doesn't appear anywhere in the article besides the title.
null
damnitbuilds
They grossly overstate what they have shown.
What they have actually shown - that cuttlefish react to another cuttlefish waving its tentacles - is clearly not showing that tentacle waving "serves as a communication system between cuttlefish.
NonHyloMorph
No that is precicsely communication, but nothing indicazes that is "talk". Communication is the "lower" phenomenon ghen talk/speech. Involuntary body processes communicate something in us sapiensapiens and we are sure tjat animals communicate. But do they talk... if we say "talk" ("sprechen") that entails the whole of what natural languages do and is quite different.
sethammons
How would you define communication between two entities? What threshold of data needs to be conveyed? Can communication be unidirectional?
bongodongobob
I think you grossly overstate your expertise in marine communication studies.
anotheryou
Of course that's communcation. "Talking" might be a bit overpromising, but definitely some comms. Don't nitpick, the core is true. :P eyeroll
damnitbuilds
This is supposed to be science, terminology matters:
They state that tentacle waving serves "as a communication system between cuttlefish."
Merely showing that a thing reacts to another thing doing something in a certain way is NOT showing the existence of a communication system between them.
Dylan16807
Weird. I would say that idle finger drumming is of course not communication.
anotheryou
Well to be fair finger drumming can, but does not have to be purpuseful communication.
You can drum your fingers because you are bored, not to signal to the outside that you are bored. Strictly speaking me picking up on your boredness because you drum your fingers makes it communication anyways I think :).
A better example would be waving at someone, communicating "hello / look at me / I see you / here / I'm happy to see you / goodbye"
anotheryou
> Communication is the process of exchanging information between individuals through various means, such as speaking, writing, or using body language. It involves a sender conveying a message to a receiver, who then interprets and responds to that message.
(some ai said this, but I think AI should be perfect for defining common words :)
null
dfxm12
I'm not going to speak for these researchers, but I will suggest you read up on the concept of scare quotes.
kozlovsky
> The exact meaning behind these arm signs remains unclear. The researchers observed them in various contexts – during mating, hunting, defensive situations, and sometimes spontaneously. This suggests the signs might serve multiple purposes depending on the situation.
Can these signs be an alphabet of some language?
A_D_E_P_T
Squid are no big deal, but people should really stop eating cuttlefish and large octopi. By all accounts -- and, by now, there are very many -- they seem highly intelligent and playful.
DangitBobby
I have recently added unintelligent people to my "can eat" list since an arbitrary intelligence level is the indicator of whether it's ok to eat something.
lukan
Pigs and birds are highly intelligent, too.
dinfinity
To be fair, though: pretty much all animals normally die of starvation (if they're lucky) or are eaten alive. Depending on how they end up on your plate their life and end of it might be far less harrowing than what they face naturally.
jjk166
The methods of killing cephalopods for commercial fishing aren't exactly what I would consider humane. Generally they are asphyxiated, thrown into freezing brine, or simply clubbed to death. There is a also a process called "reversing the mantle" which I can't find much information on but it is reported to be one of the less humane ways and frankly just the name sounds pretty terrible. Ironically the most humane method, slicing the brain, is avoided because customers don't like blade marks specifically because they believe it indicates mistreatment.
djtango
It's not clear to me whether dying by starvation is always worse than being eaten alive. Some modes of being alive are definitely horrifying but others would result in a fairly quick death...
thaumasiotes
> pretty much all animals normally die of starvation (if they're lucky) or are eaten alive
You don't have to be eaten alive. There are predators who will kill their prey before eating it. Cats are known for that.
psunavy03
That's also why cats "play" with their prey. They're not being sadistic; they're tiring it out so they can safely make a killing bite, so they can safely eat it. When your food can bite back, it behooves you to kill it first, so it can't hurt you. Which matters when your ancestors (and potentially you if you're feral) were both predator and prey.
fsckboy
when you are being bitten to death, it is difficult to discern if you are being eaten by biting or just bitten by biting. this point goes to GP
magospietato
I had a beautifully presented octopus tentacle tapas on Menorca about a decade ago. I can't describe how exquisite the meat is when cooked well.
But boy, all those short YouTube docs about smart octos just came flooding back at the first bite.
Felt a lot like eating someone's dog, and I've steered clear since.
null
aeonik
If I donate my body to octopus stockfeed after I die (after organs are harvested for those in need obviously), does that give me a pass?
deepvibrations
Can I kill and eat your pets and/or the pets of your friends/family?
I will donate my body as stockfeed to those remaining pets that your family/friends have after I die. Does that give me a pass?
infecto
Lots of places still eat horses, dogs or other animals. I may make a decision to not eat those but I don’t judge folks that do.
Dylan16807
The biggest impact when killing a pet is on the family, so that breaks the analogy really badly.
rad_gruchalski
But which pets do you mean. Pigs? Cows? Goats? A dog? A turtle?
pimlottc
Yes. You get to eat one.
MrBuddyCasino
Just embrace cannibalism.
Now you can eat what you want without having to resort to hypocritical cladistics that don't match reality.
rad_gruchalski
Watch out for prions. Stay safe.
jajko
Of course, but only if we talk about you dying now, via some pretty horrible death in well oiled industrial process, to make things at least a bit comparable.
justonceokay
I take it you’ve never played hide and seek with a chicken
luotuoshangdui
Cuttlefish are incredibly intelligent.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.13.648584v3