One of the most amazing aspects of the cuttlefish is their skin. The skin contains up to 200 pigment cells per square millimeter that enables it to change its camouflage at will.

I have been working for the California Academy of Sciences for five years now this month. I have always held a fondness for the aquarium. On my first day of work, I took a tour with other new hires through the aquarium at Howard Street. We stopped at the giant sea bass’s tank. It was feeding time and we were given sardines to feed him. We were instructed by one of the biologists to hold the fish in two fingers just beneath the surface to let him suck the fish into his mouth. When it was my turn, I dutifully held the fish under the water and watched the huge fish round the tank and head my way. He approached quicker than I had anticipated and I got spooked. So I lifted the fish out of the water. Well he still sucked the fish up; but he also sprayed me with salt water and fish guts. So I started at the office, dripping in salt water and smelling of sardines.

Tonight after work, I descended down into the Steinhart Aquarium. It’s kind of an after-work tradition to tour the aquarium before heading home. I like to stop by and see the same giant sea bass that drenched me and the octopus next door when the lights have been dimmed and the halls are empty. I now often stop at the dwarf cuttlefish tank. Tonight, one of them was swimming around the top of the tank, shimmering in a varied and beautiful color display. The other dwarf cuttlefish was resting at the bottom of the tank, expertly matching the rocks around it.

One of the most amazing aspects of the cuttlefish is their skin. The skin contains up to 200 pigment cells per square millimeter that enables it to change its camouflage at will. It also has muscles in its skin that enable it to change its skin from smooth to rough. Different species of cuttlefish can change the color and texture of their skin to blend in with the environment around them, display spikes and bright colors to ward off predators, or even create a strobe color display to mesmerize prey.

As well, cuttlefish, part of the Cephalopoda family that includes squids and octopi, have one of the largest brain to body ratios of any invertebrate. They can take in input from sight, smell and sound in the form of pressure waves felt through their lateral lines. The reaction of color displays has demonstrated problem solving and biologists study them to learn more about invertebrate and possibly human intelligence.

I now keep a closer watch on this tank, in hope of seeing the new generation of dwarf cuttlefish. The Academy is the first aquarium in the US to have a captive breeding program for dwarf cuttlefish, Sepia bandensis. The program, launched by Academy biologist Richard Ross offers the Steinhart Aquarium and other institutions the chance to feature a species, which is both captivating and less resource-intensive to keep than larger cuttlefish species. Dwarf cuttlefish span only two to four inches in length. “By establishing a stable breeding population,” Ross notes, “our hope is to make it easier for aquariums to showcase cuttlefish and their remarkable characteristics without impacting wild populations.” It’s no wonder that traveling through the Aquarium has become my favorite part of the day. Even after five years of wandering, I still see something amazing with every visit.

For some great footage of cuttlefish in the wild, along with information about research on cuttlefish and an overview of their anatomy – visit this great site provided by NOVA.

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Seahorses are sold as expensive ingredients used in
traditional Chinese medicine.

Not surprisingly, I jumped at the chance to produce the Quest "Seahorse Sleuth" story, but I will admit that the process of making this piece was demoralizing, to say the least. I spent days in San Francisco’s Chinatown trying to get shop owners who sell Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to talk to me about their trade, and specifically about seahorses. I must have visited 20 or so stores, multiple times, and I saw many hundreds of dried seahorses and thousands of shark fins, not to mention enormous piles of antlers, skins, penises, and whole dried animals. Though I tried many different approaches, no one would talk to me…I was clearly an outsider and not to be trusted. (Had I managed to garner the trust of one of the shop owners, I would have certainly included them in the piece). This experience made me even more impressed and appreciative of the hard work that the folks at Project Seahorse are doing, and exhausted at the thought of how far they still have to go to convince fisherman and governments around the world not to decimate their seahorse populations.

But whereas Project Seahorse must be measured and careful in their approach to these conversations about TCM in order to make headway, I feel that in this blog I can be more forthcoming about my feelings about the use of these animals, and all animals, in TCM.

Of course TCM has a rich history dating back at least 2,000 years, and at least a quarter of the world's population uses this form of medicine. I myself find acupuncture and herbal remedies to be very helpful and do not wish to debunk the efficacy of at least those two parts of the tradition. But I personally draw the line at the use of animals, because I'm a huge animal lover, and I am absolutely appalled at the use of endangered or threatened species for any use. This planet may have seemed endlessly bountiful 2000 years ago, but today we can no longer afford to take the survival of non-human species for granted. To add salt to the wound, it is my understanding that China does not, as of yet, perform the kind of rigorous testing of these products that we must perform for drugs in the U.S. to determine their effectiveness. (This is why we get products from China with arsenic in them, for example). One of the main uses of dried seahorses (and many other dried animals) in TCM is for male virility, though I do not believe there have been any studies that actually prove it has any effect on virility. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s dumbfounding that a country with an official one-child policy, which has led to female infanticide levels that have caused a significant gender imbalance in China, thinks they need to ingest threatened and endangered species to improve the potency of their male population. Let's put the pieces together here folks.

Ok, I'm going to get off my soapbox now, since I'm getting into territory that I am certainly not an expert in. But I did want to present this topic for open discussion – since that's what blogs are for. But before you get too riled up, let me suggest a few websites for further research.

First of all, learn what you can do to help save seahorses by signing on to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seahorse Conservation Page. You can also brush up on the specific uses of Endangered Animals in Traditional Chinese Medicine with this informative paper on Encyclopedia's “Advocacy for Animals” site.

TRAFFIC (The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) has a new Chinese-language textbook aimed at raising awareness on how to best protect threatened species used in TCM. Lastly, check out The World Wildlife Fund’s FAQ page on Traditional Chinese Medicine.

And that’s just to get you started…the web has plenty of information on this topic…read it and tell your friends!

Watch the Seahorse Sleuths television story online.

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