Hey there, welcome to play noggin, I’m Julian,
your brain’s player 2.
Let me tell you about two things I love: Nintendo
games and cephalopods.
You know, animals like octopi, squid, and
cuttlefish.
So I was frisky as a squid on tuesday when
Splatoon 2 finally dropped, because it gives
me a chance to spread the love for cephalopods,
some of the most amazing creatures in the
sea.
And considering just how weird sea creatures
are, that’s saying something.
Yeah I hear you Subnautica fans, that episode
is coming.
But cephalopods have a special place in my
heart because they have so many remarkable
talents, and when you look at it, Splatoon
2 actually shows them off really well.
And to think Nintendo almost went with rabbits
instead of the squid-human inklings.
C’mon Nintendo, you’ve had Bloopers in
your games since 1985, the answer was there
the whole time!
The first and most obvious trait the inklings
share with real squid is their ability to
shoot ink.
That is after all the premise of the game:
shoot ink to mark your territory and kill
other inklings.
Inklings seem to make their own ink, though
they replenish it by swimming through it,
which brings up some problems with conservation
of mass that I won’t get into because it’s
not fun.
Squid make their own ink too, which may sound
odd if you’re used to thinking of ink as
only stuff you’d find in pens.
But it’s not like squids make the same kind
of ink you’d find in a bic ballpoint.
A black pen’s ink gets it’s color from
carbon black, a pigment that is basically
pure elemental carbon.
By contrast the pigment in squid ink is melanin,
an organic compound that most organisms, including
humans, produce.
But pigment alone is not enough to make ink,
it has to be suspended in a liquid, and for
squid ink that liquid is mucus.
That’s right, mucus.
Kind of makes swimming through ink in the
game feel a whole lot grosser, doesn’t it?
Maybe that’s why you slow down in enemy
ink; other people’s boogers are more disgusting
than your own, right?
Who’d want to swim through that?
When you’re inkling’s not grossed out,
swimming through ink also gives them cover
by hiding them from the enemy.
For actual squids it’s not so different:
their ink sacs open up right by a funnel they
can push water through.
When a squid is threatened by a predator,
they can dump the ink into the stream of water,
shrouding them while they find a place to
hide.
That stream of water, by the way, also gives
the squid jet propulsion.
While the in game inklings might need a special
weapon set or launch pad to blast off, the
actual animals that exist on earth right now
are natural ramjets.
To achieve this point and squirt ability they
take in water when they expand their mantle,
the pointy bit above their heads.
Then when they contract it, the mantle seals
so the water is forced out of a siphon, and
the squid shoots off like a torpedo.
They can also aim the nozzle, so they can
lunge forward to snatch prey, or backward
to make a hasty retreat.
A few species have even been spotted using
their jet propulsion to launch themselves
out of the water, spreading their tentacles
and soaring as far as 10 meters.
In water some species of squid can reach speeds
as high as 25 miles per hour in short bursts,
which is pretty impressive when you consider
how hard it is to move through water.
On top of that, when they suck in water it
passes over their gills, so this is how they
breathe!
To put that in perspective, imagine if you
took take a breath and when you blew out as
hard as you could, you’d shoot backwards
at 25 miles per hour.
Oh and you could blow out a smoke screen of
mucus-y ink while you were at it.
Having ink for cover is nice, but squid have
other means of camouflage.
They can actually change the color[a] of their
skin, and not by going to some in-game shop.
They do it on the fly using cells just under
their skin called chromatophores.
These cells are little pigment filled pouches
that the squid can expand and contract on
demand.
And I do mean on demand.
They can change their whole appearance in
the blink of an eye, they don’t have to
wait til the end of a 3 minute match to switch
colors.
Using these the squid can disguise themselves,
glimmering like the waters of the open ocean
or breaking up their outline.
Squid that live in the deeper parts of the
ocean can turn themselves a darker red, a
wavelength of light that doesn’t pierce
the depths.
Since there’s no red light to reflect, these
squid essentially become invisible.
Squid have come up with another use for their
ability to tan instantly; it appears squid
can communicate via their skin.
Along with the camouflage, they can create
patterns across their bodies, like horizontal
or vertical stripes.
They can actually have different patterns
at the same time on their mantles, fins, and
arms, and can even split themselves right
down the middle to show different messages
on each side of their body.
Male squid have been seen making use of this
when they’re in between a female and a rival
male.
On one side they’ll display a courtship
message, while on the other side of their
body they’ll tell the rival to back off,
bro.
It all sounds pretty complicated, and yet
not as complicated as voice chat with the
Switch’s app.
One species, the humbolt squid, hunts in packs
and display messages to communicate with their
squad, like you would in splatoon.
For most species though the messages mostly
seem geared toward the two Fs: fighting and
reproduction, but it’s possible there could
be some deeper discussions going on.
Which brings me to my last, and most favorite
thing about squid, and cephalopods in general.
They are incredibly intelligent, and are thought
to be the smartest of the invertebrates.
Aquariums regularly give new puzzles to octopi,
like unscrewing jars or unlocking boxes to
get to their favorite treats.
Octopi actually have so much brain, they couldn’t
fit it all in their heads, and each arm has
a packet of neurons that can control it autonomously.
Squid are still pretty dang smart and impressive,
but they don’t have a network of brains
in each arm.
Hey maybe that’s why the octarians are just
a tentacle with a dumb face on!
Splatoon you are a weirdly accurate game.
Hey thanks for watching, if you liked this
video be sure to like and subscribe, leave
suggestions in the comments below, and don’t
forget to keep on playing!
[a]Most of the footage seems to show them
going from white to brown, so it's not like
they go rainbowtastic.
Still cool!
