My name is Catie Wayne.

And welcome to "Weird, Gross, & Beautiful,"

a casual discussion about animals that I think

are weird, gross, beautiful, or all three.

And today we're talking about cuttlefish.

Not cuddlefish, cut-tle-fish.

I was confused, too.

[THEME MUSIC]

Cuttlefish are distributed all around the world.

And there is over 120 different types of species of them.

Cuttlefish are cephalopods.

And they were around way before the first shark or fishes

ever evolved.

Cuttlefish ancestors used to have

shells on their backs, kind of like hermit crabs,

as a means of defense.

But nowadays, cuttlefish have camouflage to protect them.

They got all the little cells all over their bodies.

And they change the colors to fit in with their environments

So cuttlefish have like 20 million chromatophores

all over its body, or like little cells that

are attached to muscles.

And then they flex their muscles.

And then that's how they change their colors.

And because cuttlefish are cephalopods,

they also produce ink, like a brownish color-y type of ink.

And humans use it in art all the time.

And in fact, the color named sepia

comes from the cuttlefish's original name,

"Sepia officinalis."

Cuttlefish have relatively short lives.

They only live for about one to two years.

But they grow very, very quickly.

Since they grow so fast, they spend a lot of their time

resting-- 95% of their time, to be exact.

What a life, man.

Cuttlefish have an internal structure

called a cuttlebone, which is kind of funny.

The cuttlebone helps keep them buoyant,

so it allows them to help conserve

their energy, which they need to do.

Remember?

We just talked about this.

It's either filled with liquid or gas,

depending on the time of day, and depending on how buoyant

the cuttlefish wants to be.

When cuttlefish die, the bones wash up onto shore.

And humans will gather them to feed

to their domesticated birds as like a calcium treat.

And with their special skin that they have,

where they go swish, swish, swish, swish,

they will hunt and communicate with each other.

And also, they will mate.

Two males, they'll flash at each other really

aggressively, and be like, no.

I'm the prettiest one, so I'm going to get the female.

And the other one's like, no, look how brightly I shine.

And he's like, aw, yeah.

That's unfortunate.

The bigger, most impressive male usually wins.

But, however, comma, sometimes tiny males

can successfully mate with a female

via female impersonation.

So he'll go over to her, and camouflage

himself to look like her, and just kind of attach onto her.

And then maybe, if he looks like her long enough,

the other male won't notice that they are mating.

[LAUGHING] He's just like, oh god, oh god.

[LAUGHING]

Thank you so much for watching "Weird, Gross, & Beautiful."

My name is Catie Wayne.

And if would like to, you can follow me

on Twitter @catiewayne.

And let me know what animal you would like me to cover next.

Today's episode was suggested by Mike @Vurtax.

So thank you so much for the suggestion, lovely.

Muah.

And, while you're doing stuff for me,

you should check out this video over here

about the nine Twitter followers that you need to have.

It's a new daily show that I like to do, called "Anywho."

And we have selected Rony Dixon's t-shirt design

to be the first ever "Weird, Gross & Beautiful"

t-shirt to be sold.

Congratulations.

I love it so much.

I think it's so cute.

And I love it.

And soon it will be available to buy an animalist.com/store.

And until next time, please share this video and stuff.

And I love you.

And I'll see you.

Bye.

Muah.