How octopuses evolved to have the camouflage ability?

You may have seen an octopus changing color itself same as its surroundings. Also, there are
chameleons that change their colors too, however, they need at least 20 seconds to change its
color, while octopuses change it straight. Octopuses belong to cephalopods, meaning that their
legs hang on their heads. Also, they are mollusks and invertebrates, which means they have no
bones. How could this invertebrate creature evolve to camouflage?

About 500 million years ago in the deep ocean, there was a group of ancient shelled mollusks
called the monoplacophorans. These are the ancestor of octopuses. They had shells to protect
and control them to swim better. Shells control the portion of air and water, making buoyancy.
It allows them to swim at the same water level or change it flexibly. Based on these advantages,
many species created and varied.

However, in the Jurassic period, predators appeared and ate them. Although they had shells, but
their shells were too weak. Therefore, they had to be faster to avoid predators’ threats. It is the
reason why most of the ancient cephalopods evolved without shells. Shells were too heavy to
speed up, they slowly evolved eliminating their shells. Most of the cephalopods evolved to
remove their shells, but some of them didn’t eliminate their shells, which are evolved as today’s
nautilus. After, since the shells were gone, cephalopods could put water a lot in their body so
that they can speed up by puffing that water. Thus, the cephalopods evolved from defensive
creatures to moving creatures.

Cephalopods evolved in various types, and octopuses were one of them. Also, from that period,
they didn’t have any shells. However, their soft body was the destructive disadvantages.
Therefore, they selected the method, camouflage, to avoid predators. So, in today’s octopuses,
they can change their color in only a few seconds.

In the octopuses body, there are 500 million neurons, and this number is 20 thousand 500
times more than a snail, which is the same invertebrate, two times more than a cat, and similar
value to a dog. More surprisingly, only 1/3 are found in their brain. This means that 2/3 of
neurons are spread in each of their 8 legs. Octopuses do not judge by their brain, their 8 legs
judge and recognize the situation independently. Although their brain is small, they can have
outstanding recognition and learning ability than other animals.

Octopuses are known as color blindness, then how could they recognize the colors? They
recognize colors through photoreceptors on their skin, not passing through the brain or the
central nervous system. This is the reason why octopuses can change their skin color more
quickly than other creatures. On the octopus's skin, there are chromatophores which are filled
with black, red, and yellow color bags, surrounded by muscles. They control their skin color by
expanding or lessening their color bag. And other colors such as blue, green, or white, they use
different chemicals in their skin.

“Among invertebrates, however, the acquisition of items that are deployed later has not
previously been reported. We repeatedly observed soft-sediment dwelling octopuses carrying
around coconut shell halves, assembling them as a shelter only when needed.” (Julian 2009).
Thus, octopuses these days evolved with outstanding intelligence like this. Ancient cephalopods,
which had a shell protecting their body constantly disappeared due to the appearance of
predators. They chose the method camouflage to protect themselves from predators. Then, they
evolved to camouflage to complement their body, which was a disadvantage. Through this
evolution, today, octopuses became the most successful invertebrate creatures.
References

Jerzy Dzik (1981). "Origin of the Cephalopoda." VOL.26 NO.2, PP. 161-186. Available at:
https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app26/app26-161.pdf

Neale Monks and Jeremy R. Young (1998). “BODY POSITION AND THE FUNCTIONAL
MORPHOLOGY OF CRETACEOUS HETEROMORPH AMMONITES.” Available at:
https://palaeo-electronica.org/1998_1/monks/text.pdf

ROGER T. HANLON (1999). "Crypsis, conspicuousness, mimicry and polyphenism as

antipredator defences of foraging octopuses on Indo-Pacific coral reefs, with a method of
quantifying crypsis from video tapes."Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol.66, Pages
1–22. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/66/1/1/2661300

M. Desmond Ramirez, Todd H. Oakeley (2015). "Eye-independent, light-activated

chromatophore expansion (LACE) and expression of phototransduction genes in the skin of
Octopus bimaculoides." Available at:
https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/218/10/1513/759/Eye-independent-light-activated-
chromatophore

Julian K. Finn et al., (2009). "Defensive tool use in a coconutcarrying octopus." Vol. 19.
Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209019149