C is for Cuttlefish

If you've ever seen a cuttlefish, it's only because he wanted you to see him.  Calling cuttlefish "chameleons of the sea," gives too much credit to chameleons.  Cuttlefish can look any way they want.  In seconds, they can render themselves invisible against any surface by changing not only the color and pattern, but texture of their skin.  This makes drawing one both easier and more difficult.  No one can accuse me of drawing it wrong, because no one, not even the cuttlefish, knows what they really look like.  If I make one blue with pink stripes, I can just say that's how this particular cuttlefish chose to look at the time.  If I'd wanted, I could've given it a big funny nose and Groucho Marx glasses.

Cuttlefish are perhaps the most intelligent marine animal.  If you know anything about Darwin, you'd know that anything that's a master of disguise and highly intelligent must be dee-licious.  Anything good-tasting that's stupid and doesn't know how to hide, gets eaten up.  Witness the dodo.

Cuttlefish have three hearts, which seems excessive in anything so small.  Their blood is blue and their pupils are shaped like little Ms.  They use jet propulsion and squirt ink.

When they mate, a male stands guard over his female to protect against unauthorized entry, but certain sly bachelor cuttlefish have found a way around this; they will make themselves look like a female cuttlefish and thus slip by unchallenged.  The male cuttlefish thinks, "Oh, that's just a female.  No harm in her.  The missus must be having some friends over."  Then once they've duped the husband, they reveal themselves to the female and make sweet, sweet cuttlefish love.

So you male cuttlefish out there, beware.  Even when a female gives her heart away, she still has two to spare.