Self-study
When researchers discovered that cuttlefish have the ability to make themselves suddenly appear larger, they presumed that this behavior, called a "startle display," was used to scare off predators. █ █████████ ██████ ████████ ███████ ████ ██████████ █████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Cuttlefish use their startle display to scare off harmless fish, but they don’t use their startle display to scare off predators.
Objective
The correct answer will be a hypothesis that explains why cuttlefish use startle displays to scare harmless fish. That explanation must result in cuttlefish gaining some benefit from using their startle display against small, harmless fish. It might also result in cuttlefish gaining either no benefit or a negligible benefit from using their startle display against predators.
8.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████ █████████
a
Cuttlefish feed primarily ██ █████ ████ ███ █████████
Why would cuttlefish want to scare off their prey? We need to explain why cuttlefish use their startle displays on small fish, but this just makes it more confusing.
b
Groups of small ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ████████████ ██████████
Cuttlefish use their startle displays on small fish to pre-emptively avoid their predators. Small fish attract predators, so it makes sense that cuttlefish would want to scare them away.
c
Small fish are ████ ██████ ██████ ███ ██ █ ███████ ███████ ████ ███ █ ████████████ ██████████
Sure, it's easy, but what's the point? This doesn’t explain why cuttlefish would bother scaring off small fish in the first place.
d
Cuttlefish have acute ██████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ██████ ███████
Like (C), this is just a fun fact that doesn’t explain the why cuttlefish bother scaring off small fish. We don’t care about their other abilities.
e
Unlike insects that ███ ███████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ █████ ██████████
This may explain why cuttlefish don’t use startle displays with predators, if they can just quickly swim away. But why do they bother using them with small fish?