Leila Deravi

How cephalopods achieve this instantaneous camouflage is a mystery that has tantalized humans since at least 350 BCE, when Aristotle made observational notes on the subject, says Leila Deravi, associate professor at Northeastern University, whose BioMaterials Design Group specializes in biomimicry.

Cephalopods also rely on tiny sacs of pigmented cells called chromatophores. “The colors are precisely layered, with yellow over red over brown,” says Leila Deravi, a professor at Northeastern University who was not involved in the study.

Around 2,400 years ago, Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher who is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern science, jotted down detailed observations of octopus camouflage — the first known person to do so, Leila Deravi, a biochemist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts who studies octopus camouflage mechanics, told Live Science.

In the lab of Leila Deravi, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern University, Martin studied animals such as squid, octopus and cuttlefish.

Scientists at Northeastern University have thrown another possibility into the mix, and one that came about through a serendipitous discovery concerning the color-changing ways of camouflaging squid.

Biochemist Leila Deravi of Northeastern University, who wasn’t involved in the study, says that this new smart skin has overcome a “major problem for engineers” by figuring out how to elicit a color change without altering the volume of a polymer.

“We were always continuously surprised by these animals,” Leila Deravi, a professor of chemistry at Northeastern University, told The Times earlier this year. “As soon as you think you kind of understand how they work, you find something else.”