Don't go away! Jonathan is about to
find some of the most amazingly camouflaged
animals in the sea!
Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my World!
( music ♪ )
On a reef in the Pacific, a group of Yellowtailed
Blue Damselfish hide near the coral, ready to
duck into a hole at any moment.Between them all, watching
and not moving a muscle, is a scorpionfish.
His perfect camouflage is the result of skin that can
change color to match the surroundings.
The only thing that gives him away is the slight movement of
his gills as he breathes.
He is watching the damselfish.
They're blissfully unaware of his presence.
Soon a Damselfish comes too close.
The scorpionfish is so confident in its camouflage that almost
nothing can frighten it.Many animals in the ocean
rely upon camouflage to hunt their prey, or to avoid being
eaten. The crocodile fish is so well camouflaged
that divers rarely notice them.
Even its eye has camouflage because a round, black pupil would give it away.
Like the crocodilefish, the frogfish
is an ambush predator that hides using camouflage to look
like a sponge with algae growing on it.
It doesn't swim very much.
Instead, it walks on its foot-like fins.
It moves slowly so it doesn't give itself away.
The frogfish is watching
a group of tiny Anthias, waiting for one to come close enough to eat.
The frogfish hasn't
eaten in days. But no matter how hungry she is,
she must wait patiently for prey to come to her.
She watches...and waits.
It may be hours before she gets a meal.
Later,
as the sun sets, she is still waiting in the shadows,
practically invisible to the Anthias.
A frogfish has the fastest mouth on the reef.
It can open its mouth so fast that it slurps
up a fish in less than 1/60th of a second.
That's literally the blink of an eye.
Even in slow motion, the gulp is barely visible.
Her camouflage has really paid off.
Although sometimes camouflage is about blending
into the bottom, other times a creature evolves
into the bottom, other times a creature evolves to mimic
another creature. This is called mimicry. Come check out this fish!
On an Indonesian reef, I find
a beautiful pink sea fan. At first glance,
you would never suspect that it has tiny inhabitants.
But closer inspection reveals a sea horse,
no larger than my fingernail.
It's a pygmy sea horse. The color and knobby bumps on the pygmy sea horse's
skin perfectly mimic the appearance of the sea fan where it lives--
a classic example of mimicry.
They are only visible if they move.
These animals
live their entire lives in safety because they are nearly invisible
to predators, and they never have to leave the safety of the sea fan because
they feed on plankton drifting right by their home.
Out on the sand away from the reef, a pair of
what are apparently leaves drift down-current.
But upon closer inspection, they are
not leaves at all—they just look like them.
They're Robust Ghost
pipefish, mimicking harmless drifting leaves
so they can float up, and pluck shrimp from the bottom.
The Robust ghost pipefish
almost perfectly mimics a piece of eelgrass.
Its relative, the Ornate
Ghost pipefish, has taken a different approach to camouflage.
It mimics the appearance of a harmless
and not very tasty, feather star.
This fish is a poor swimmer, but it doesn't have to swim well
because potential predators just don't see it.
The sandy sea floor has a surprising number
of animals that hide by blending in,
and few do it as well as the flounder. Except for its breathing,
this flat fish is nearly invisible.
With a quick rippling of its body, this founder puts
a thin layer of sand over itself—and vanishes.
Of course, blending into
the bottom is one thing, but what about animals that live up in the water column?
Can they be camouflaged too? Absolutely.
Many open ocean fish are silvery in color.
Why? So they reflect the color of the water around them.
It doesn't make them invisible,
but a lot harder to see, especially from further away.
Many sharks have a form of camouflage known as countershading.
The underside of a shark is white
while the top of the shark is darker. When seen from below,
the shark's lighter coloring underneath helps it blend in with the lighter water above.
When viewed from above,
the darker dorsal surface of the shark makes it blend into the darker
water below. Pretty clever, huh?
Some animals have coloration that makes them stand out instead of blend in.
For many fish, the brighter the coloration, the easier
it is to attract a mate. And it would seem that
finding a mate is more important for these King Angelfish than avoiding predators.
A Regal Angelfish takes this coloration to an extreme.
This fish wants to be noticed!
This long-nosed butterfly fish has a clever
adaptation of color to help confuse predators.
There's a black dot at the base of its tail called a false eye spot.
Its real eye is obscured by dark coloration
running right through it. This is meant
to confuse predators.
The nudibranch, also called a sea slug, has bright coloration that scientists call aposematic.
These animals are basically snails without a shell.
They might look like a tasty and defenseless little
snack for a passing fish, but in fact many nudibranchs secrete
a toxic acid that makes them inedible to virtually anything
on the reef. Its bright aposematic coloration
is a warning to potential predators that says, I don't taste good!
Perhaps the most incredible
coloration possessed by a sea creature is that of the octopus.
An octopus can change colors!
This octopus is moving from reef to rubble to sand.
It changes color and skin patterns as it goes to blend in!
( music ♪ )
There are almost as many camouflage and color schemes
in the ocean as there are fish in the sea. I'm always
amazed by the things I observe in the Blue World, and fortunately,
I get to see this stuff even though I'm not very camouflaged at all!
( music ♪ )