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Arata Nakayama

@arata-nakayama.bsky.social
29 followers 40 following 1 posts

Posdoc in Taiwan/Japan, working on Cephalopod and Crustacean visual ecology and biophotonics www.arata-nakayama.com

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Reposted by Arata Nakayama
Journal of Experimental Biology @jexpbiol.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Cuttlefish use polarised light to make their arms appear banded, but if their arms get too large the bands start to disappear. Recently Nakayama &co showed that the animal's arms stop growing at the ideal size, even though the rest of it gets bigger doi.org/10.1242/jeb....
A male Andrea cuttlefish. Photo credit: Arata Nakayama.
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Reposted by Arata Nakayama
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 04/02/2026
Your average female Doratosepion andreanum cuttlefish finds nothing more alluring than the long, extended arms of a male cuttlefish aglow with elaborate patterns made of horizontally and vertically polarized light. In PNAS: ow.ly/iJYh50Y8lug
Male Doratosepion andreanum curling its long, iridescent, sexually dimorphic arms in front of its head.
CREDIT: Arata Nakayama
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Reposted by Arata Nakayama
Sensory Ecology Lab @sensoryecology.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
“Male Andrea cuttlefish (Doratosepion andreanum) – quite drab to human eyes – use their birefringent arms to literally twist light, creating a highly conspicuous signal precisely tuned to cuttlefish vision.” #scicomm www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-l... 🧪 🐙 🦑
sciencealert.com
Cuttlefish Literally Twist Light to Attract a Mate, Study Finds
Every critter on this planet that relies on a sexual means of reproduction has its own way of luring in a mate – but cuttlefish can do something really special.
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Arata Nakayama @arata-nakayama.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Our paper is out from @pnas.org ! We found that cuttlefish use transparent muscle to produce polarized courtship signal. Birefringence property of muscle makes the transmitted light highly conspicuous for cuttlefish polarization vision. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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