Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
As I hovered above a sandy bottom, twenty meters down in the Lembeh
Strait, I surprised a Pharaoh cuttlefi sh that was gently snoozing above a small
coral outcrop. Its outline was broken up by the many small lumps and pro-
tuberances all over its body, and its tentacles were crumpled into irregular
shapes like complex pieces of origami. A blotched color pattern of green and
yellow completed its disguise as an apparent lump of coral.
When I moved closer it woke, swiveled alertly to face me, and began to
change its appearance. The many protuberances melted away in seconds, so
that its body became smooth. Its arms and tentacles unfurled and straight-
ened. Its color became lighter and more uniform. Within a minute it was
transformed from an almost invisible coral-like object into a streamlined ani-
mal ready to fl ee. As I took my last picture of this whole-body makeover, the
cuttlefi sh jetted away with a pulse of water from its siphon and disappeared
into the darkness. The cuttlefi sh is one of the world's most accomplished
shape-shifters, and it had just given me an ef ortless demonstration of its
skill.
Surely no two organisms could be more dissimilar than the ingenious
and graceful water-breathing cuttlefi sh and its clumsy air-gulping human
observer. But in fact, even though present-day cuttlefi sh are expert shape-
shifters and we are not, we had a common ancestor. And, at the time of that
common ancestor, a far more astonishing shape-shift took place, one that
had enormous evolutionary consequences.
How do we know that we are related to the cuttlefi sh? When and how
did we fi rst take such dif erent evolutionary paths, and how have we and
the cuttlefi sh converged in some of our abilities? What other animals have
branched of from our dif erent lineages during the long course of our evo-
lutionary divergence? And is it possible to investigate, and perhaps even to
recreate, the events that took place at the distant time when we and the cut-
tlefi sh began to diverge?
As a good Darwinian tourist, these evolutionary thoughts spun through
my mind as I watched my remote relative propel itself into the dark.
