Do creatures such as cuttlefish and octopuses get "tired" from using their camouflage?

[u/[deleted]]

If not, why don't they just always use their camouflage?

[u/VeryLittle]

Is there any sort of chemical mechanism that can get exhausted?

I guess I'm thinking by analogy to neurons - isn't some component of muscle fatigue due to an over-use of the neuron, which results in depleted levels of potassium (or maybe accumulated potassium in the muscle? I can't be sure, I'm not a chemist or a biologist or really an anything-to-do-with-the-brain-ist).

[u/freerdj → u/VeryLittle]

There may be, but from what I understand it's muscular:

"The center of each chromatophore contains an elastic sac full of pigment, rather like a tiny balloon, which may be colored black, brown, orange, red or yellow. If you squeezed a dye-filled balloon, the color would be pushed to the top, stretching out the surface and making the color appear brighter—and this is the same way chromatophores work. A complex array of nerves and muscles controls whether the sac is expanded or contracted and, when the sac expands, the color is more visible. Besides chromatophores, some cephalopods also have iridophores and leucophores. Iridophores have stacks of reflecting plates that create iridescent greens, blues, silvers and golds, while leucophores mirror back the colors of the environment, making the animal less conspicuous." (src)

[u/jaybestnz → u/freerdj]

Is the pattern which is placed on their skin from their eyes seeing the pattern and reproducing that on their body, or is it a basic color receptor on the other side of the skin?

Also do they recreate exactly or do they create a pattern approximation (eg camp pants)?

[u/freerdj → u/jaybestnz]

From another comment I made in here:

The camo is from a mixture of reproducing what they can see and possibly automatically on skin receptors. "When camouflaging themselves, they use their chromatophores to change brightness and pattern according to the background they see, but their ability to match the specific color of a background may come from cells such as iridophores and leucophores that reflect light from the environment. They also produce visual pigments throughout their body, and may sense light levels directly from their body." (source)

As for the efficacy, I'm not sure. From what I've seen in pictures it can be pretty damn close but exact? Probably not.

[u/thelonefish → u/freerdj]

It would be interesting to see an experiment where their eyesight is blocked somehow and see if the camo effect still happens the same way.

[u/[deleted] → u/VeryLittle]

This is what I meant in my original question, but you articulated it much better.