The business end of a cuttlefish is no place a small crustacean
wants to be. Cuttlefish are hunters who creep around in
camouflage—virtually indistinguishable from a gray patch of
gravel or a branching green seaweed—then lash out with their
tentacles, turning a passing shrimp into shrimp toast. Oh, and
they're colorblind. Despite this apparent handicap, though,
learning to hunt doesn't take a lifetime. Baby cuttlefish figure
it out almost as soon as they hatch. "Newly hatched cuttlefish
are mini adults," says Anne-Sophie Darmaillacq of the Université
de Caen Basse-Normandie in France. They behave similarly to
full-grown cuttlefish, that is, and look like toy versions of
their parents. Yet those grownups are long gone. "Parents die
after the spawning season," Darmaillacq says. Since cuttlefish
are born as orphans, they have to be able to look after
themselves right away. For this reason, Darmaillacq and her
coauthors wondered how the eyesight of junior cephalopods
compares to that of their adult relatives. To