How do you confuse a cuttlefish? any others?

[Brian of Aquanauts]

Interacting (not interfering) with anilmals and wildlife can bring it's own rewards, beyond just bagging it and taking it home for the missus to cook.

I'm not a marine biologist so any extra info would be good.
The more experienced divers out there probably know these:

So how do you confuse a cuttlefish?

I've tried for quite some time. Normally sticking two fingers up (as you would behind someone's head to give them horns) works best. It mimics the cuttlefishes agressive stance, but they aint used to seeing if from a diver. Moving your fingers across the front of your torch has often initiated them flashing stripes back at me. And if you have a glove that has different textures, maybe black flat and smooth on one side and raised white grips on the other, rapidly turning your hand over and back again sometimes make them try and talk back...

Does spinning the bezel of your dive watch round at different speeds really attract dolphins? Have had varrying levels of success but did manage to dive with a pod for 10-15minutes once before they started scaring me by getting a bit too friendly.

Pushing sand up with your fingers seems to make wrasse want to come close - maybe they think you're looking for food, and are hoping to get some scraps.

The worst case of mimicing involved a friend who has a technique for sounding like a shark crunching crustaceans - i won't tell you the exact technique, but it makes them come real close thinking there's food around. At 40m he was acting as the bait while his buddy filmed. He ended up getting his mask eaten, his reg bitten through, and knocked unconscious.

Anyone know any others?

[Mdemon]

[quote=Brian of Aquanauts]He ended up getting his mask eaten, his reg bitten through, and knocked unconscious.
QUOTE]
LOL! That'll teach him...

Interesting stuff - I'll try the cuttlefish thing next time I see one...

[Diving Daisy]

How to confuse an Irishman, put two shovels in a room and tell him to take his pick!

Not quite the same I know, but the old ones are the best ones and I just couldn't help myself!

[Tim Ingmire]

Confuse a cuttlefish? Simple take down a cutting from a kilt and place it behind the thing - that will do its' head in!

[grigor]

How do you titillate and ocelot...?

...oscillate its tits a lot!

Sorry - Grigor

[h2oonfilm.com]

cuttle fish come into torbay each year to breed and have had the pleasure of studying them in shallow water.
2 hour dive in 5 to 10m (pending tides).... we took a deck chair each, set it up underwater, placed weights (rocks) on the legs and settled back for some great observations.

1 from above, one cuttle (male) was communicating with a female alongside to its left. the whole left side of the male was a colour show, but the right side was completly white and static.... apparently it is the males way of chatting up the fermale without letting others to the outward side know what it is up to.

2 after several weeks of being in the same place, two cuttles were getting use to us and would come up and look into our face masks...... you really have to experience it to know what words to use to describe it..... I wasnt sure who was studying who.

3 other patterns made, were when a large edible crab disturbed one, whilst it was buried in the sand. It rose up, turned to face the crab and turned on a 'zebracrossing' pattern, which moved along the back to the front and down their tenticles, giving the visual impression that they were 'flicking' something towards the crab.

got a lot to learn from the wet world..... appreciated the experience............................. and we wern't charged for the deckchairs!
stephenn

[CotoChris]

Last Saturday I tried this out on 5 different cuttlefish with no luck whatsoever. Worse still I looked like a twat and the other divers thought I was insulting them so they returned my message with a 'finger'! Ahhh

[Moray]

Chris, don't get irritated by the philistines:-)

Keep trying, because you really can get them to "play" - they hang in front of me giving me lasers shows all the time, and all I do is waggle my fingers at them.

[sch]

My buddy's just posted up some pics of me 'chatting' to cuttlefish from our trip down to Portland a couple of weeks ago ....

[sch]

and here's the good looking one from the pics above