Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-38153599-20190113103910

Upon seeing the Mesmer for the first time, I was immediately reminded of the Broadclub Cuttlefish, a cephalopod which utilises remarkably similar hunting strategies to the Mesmer.

The Cuttlefish will splay its arms (like the Mesmer splaying its colour-changing fins), turn pale blue and make black stripes move over the blue front of its body at an incredibly fast rate (just like the violet stripes passing over the Mesmer's fins). When it does this the animal (usually a crustacean) it is targeting will stop moving and stare at it (like when Mesmers hypnotise their prey), and it will only snap out of the trance when the Cuttlefish opens its mouth and two long feeding tentacles (like the fangs inside of a Mesmer's mouth) burst out and grab it (just like when you get too close to a Mesmer).

I think that the similarities are far too blunt for it to be a coincidence, but has there been any confirmation or talk about this before?

Here's a video of the Cuttlefish's "hypnosis": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1T4ZgkCuiM 