Survival of the Sneakiest

Picture the scene. The setting could be burning savannah, dense rainforest or snow covered mountains. Wherever it is it's almost certainly narrated by David Attenborough, Brian Cox at a push. A grizzled older mammal watches over his harem of females. He might be a lion, a stag perhaps, basically anything magnificent enough to get on a banner in Game of Thrones. He’s majestically minding his own business, when suddenly there’s a music change. A young contender appears to the trill of ominous violins. He’s here for the crown, the kingdom, and lots of other things that animals have no conception of but make for awesome narration. There’s some prowling, a few dubbed on snarls, then he attacks. The fight is epic, slow-motion dynamite. Blood spatters and fur flies as the two animals claw their way to the ultimate title: alpha male. This will confer sovereignty and breeding rights on the victor, assuring the continuation of his genetic line. This fight, although dramatized, is at its heart real. Equally real is the scraggly little male quickly mating with the females off-camera.

The official biological term is kleptogamy. It refers to the behaviour of so-called subordinate males who seize the opportunity to mate with females who would otherwise be unavailable during prolonged bouts of alpha-maledom. It’s the animal equivalent of a guy actually talking to a girl while two dudebros do furious push-ups in the background. I know, I anthropomorphize, but hey who doesn’t? Case in point, kleptogamy is colloquially known in biologist circles as the ‘Sneaky Fucker Stratagem’. The image is tickling because it neatly deflates the human notions of masculinity and honour that have been projected back onto animal behaviour. The words ‘klepto’ and ‘sneaky’ evoke an immoral individual out to steal someone’s girlfriend, hardly applicable in the animal kingdom – probably not adequate in the human one either but that's a rant for another day. The question is, which animal is the sneakiest? You might think our closest relatives the apes would be the cleverest in subverting the sexiarchy, and studies of monkey troupes in India do indeed show males and females stealing away from the group for deliciously subversive relations. Yet the greatest accolade of sneakiness has to go to that noblest of beasts: the cuttlefish.

The alpha male cuttlefish is resplendent. Spread out luxuriantly on his patch of coral, he accrues females beneath him thanks to his large size and colourful displays. He will defend his females with force if need be, wrestling any would-be suitors into submission. He’s that gallant a cuttlefish. With such an impressive specimen dominating the field, what’s a smaller male to do? The best solution is often the simplest - said no cuttlefish ever. Instead the smaller male tucks in his tentacles, and morphs from imperial purple to white with brown patches. He now resembles a female, and the big male far from repelling the intruder invites him into his gang of cuttle-groupies. While big-job stands guard, the smaller male mates with them right underneath the alpha’s tentacles. Although the language that surrounds these supposedly ‘sneaky’ males is comically (and perhaps nervously?) weighted to make them seem dastardly and borderline criminal, I can’t help but applaud the cuttlefish. The ingenuity with which he reaches his cuttle-baes is deeply romantic to my mind, besides there’s also no need to feel sorry for Mr Big, because he’s none the wiser and gets to mate too. Plus the females get double the fun, and with babies who are half splendid and half resourceful, the future of cuttlekind is assured. Click on Cuttleromeo below to check out some footage.