Do squid & cuttlefish have a sense of direction?

November 26, 2006 2:56 PM

Cephalopod filter: Do squid and cuttlefish have a sense of direction? It's more perplexing than it might first sound...

I know this is weird but it's been bugging my SO (and, consequently, me) for a while..

Squid and cuttlefish *seem* equally comfortable moving with their tentacles to the rear and to the front. Their eyes seem to have around 180 degree vision. I presume that their tentacles are the end of their body which requires most concentration, so when they 'jet' with their tentacles trailing behind, do they feel that they are travelling backwards? For that matter, is a sense of direction simply a product of vertebrate symmetry? Do echinoderms have a sense of direction other than up/down?

posted by 8k to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

This is kind of a philosophical question - it seems you are projecting consciousness onto squids, which can be debatable. See what is it like to be a bat for this angle.

If you want a more biological explanation, yes, the cephalopods have an organ called the statocyst responsible for most of their balance and sense of direction.
posted by scodger at 3:30 PM on November 26, 2006

Well, whether or not they have a conscious preference for moving in one direction or another, they could still show a statistical preference. Maybe what you want to ask is, "Do squid and cuttlefish spend more time moving tentacles-first or tentacles-last?"
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:57 PM on November 26, 2006

I think your question is meaningless as asked, because it assumes that squids have the same kind of thinking processes we have and deal with the same kinds of concepts we do.

As a practical matter, it's impossible for us to know. As a philosophical question, it's not clear the question even means anything.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:10 PM on November 26, 2006

Both squid and cuttlefish have relatively advanced sensory biology, and directionality is one of the most basic of these senses. They have spatial learning abilities and can navigate mazes, so yes, they have a sense of direction.

(If you want academic references for these, my e-mail is in my profile.)
posted by nekton at 4:16 PM on November 26, 2006

Their jet is probably more somatically intuitive, since all cephs have jets, but not all have fins, and since several ceph species use jets as juveniles then switch to fin propulsion as adults.

I see it like this; you run backwards at 20 mph to the Ponderosa, and once you get to the salad bar you turn around, ambling forward slowly and using your hands to grab various and sundry food items and putting them in your mouth. Both get you around, but you use them for different tasks.
posted by kickback at 4:25 PM on November 26, 2006

Sense of direction is all about our vision. Forward is in front of us, backwards is behind us. Since squid's eyes arent the same as ours ( seeing two different images), how can they possibly feel as if they are going backwards? They just.. go.
posted by lain at 4:26 PM on November 26, 2006

"posted by nekton at 7:16 PM EST on November 26"

(The appropriateness of nekton's user name in this AskMe kills me. Mark it as best answer, 8k! And ask for the references, by all means!)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:21 AM on November 27, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks very much indeed for your answers, especially nekton and kickback (sorry but we couldn't choose between the you two for best answer)!
posted by 8k at 4:22 PM on November 28, 2006