Two male squid gawk at each other over a female squid. As shown, the common cuttlefish can dilate one pupil at a time, which makes for a thrilling staring contest. (?Justine Allen and Derya Akkaynak)

Flashes of color, aggressive poses, jets of bodily fluids: battleThis graphic is usually only shown on pay-per-view.

In a new video, two male common squid (squid squid) fight over a mate, though the "fight" isn't exactly fair. Justin Allen, an associate lecturer in ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, said the active cephalopods roll, bite and spray with black ink in an undersea battle that hasn't been captured on film until now.

"It's amazing, there's ink everywhere." , who witnessed the squid battle as a neuroscience PhD student. She told Live Science that this kind of violence is a rare sight. [See video of vicious squid fight]

"Their accelerated biting and writhing and grappling, and all the ink and all the more aggressive behavior we're seeing, is very unusual, said Allen:

Battle Royal

Allen and researcher-researcher at the University of Haifa in Israel Derya Akkaynak are diving in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Chemiart, Turkey, with the aim of studying the properties of squid camouflage. These soft cephalopods can rapidly change their skin patterns by altering pigmented organs called pigmentosomes. The researchers, who were filming a lone female squid, planned to measure the spectrum of light reflected off her skin as a male squid approached and, without any foreplay, swooped in to mate with the female in the head-to-head position used by the squid. The male squid then hovers over the female to protect her from rivals.

Justine Allen, then a neuroscience PhD student at Brown University, stared at a common squid. Allen and her colleague Derya Akkaynak captured the first video of these squid fighting in the wild. (Derya Akkaynak)

Just three minutes later, one appeared. A second male charged in, flashing a black zebra pattern on Male 1, a known sign of a cuttlefish attack. The intruder also extended a fourth arm, another sign of aggression. Male #1 sent back these signals, then turned black and fled, sounding the alarm. [See photo of colorful camouflage cuttlefish]

It looked like a victory for Male #2, who calmly stood above the female and began swimming. However, just a minute later, Male #1 returned to defend his honor and retrieve his mate. He challenged his rival, flashing dark colors and flying around for about 10 seconds until male #2 decided to grab the female and attempt to mate. At that point, male #1 grabs the intruder and all 3 cuttlefish end up in a messy tangle of tentacles,

High Stakes Conflict

The female quickly breaks free and flees the scene, leaving male #1 holding on to male #2. The first male barrel rolled over his opponent three times, and the two inked and viciously bit.Writing in the May 2 issue of American Museumian, Allen and her colleagues claimed that, although males have been observed fighting over females in captivity, such battles in the wild are far more intense than what is seen in a laboratory tank,

two male cuttlefish staring at each other for a female. As the photo shows, the common cuttlefish can dilate one pupil at a time, which makes for a thrilling staring contest. (Justin Allen and Derya Akkenak)

After a few seconds of heated brawling, Male #2 escapes and Male #1 makes a brief chase. Male #1, now the victor, returned to Female #1 and the two returned to their *** post-swim. The male intruder did not return to the researchers' other dives.

While all this was going on, Allen and Akkaynak were frantically trying to capture every moment of the video. At one point, Akkaynak pushed a still camera into Allen, who said it was some sort of error message about disk space and whether previous data should be overwritten.

"I thought, 'Yeah, great, whatever, yeah, well, I don't care if this overwrites our research data,'" Allen said.

While the encounter was more intense than the fights observed in captivity, Allen said the postures and aggression seen in the wild confirmed that captive squid communicate in a similar way to what happens in the open ocean. Among the cuttlefish's strange aggressive signals is its ability to independently dilate one pupil for an additional intimidating stare.

"It's kind of intimidating," Allen said.

The males in conflict seemed to be sizing up each other's ability to fight, gradually escalating from intimidating displays to fighting for all-out combat. Squid are generally reluctant to touch each other if they can help it, Allen says, because fighting can lead to scarring; these skin scars can interfere with the squid's camouflage and visual communication. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to see two squid out of the blue.

"I think it's just a reflection of the intensity of competition between mates," Allen said.

It was the original article on life sciences.