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Aqua Hide-And-Seek

Not only are bigger fish usually more timid, no one needs to tell you they just know how to hide better. They are no match, however, to the kings of aqua hide-and-seek: the cephalopods (or octopus), many of which are conspicuous while moving, but can change appearance, depending on where you find them. Often, as one moves across a reef it finds a spot to settle on, and curls up and disappears, mimicking a chunk of coral for safety. To see this in the wild must be shocking. To watch in the video below immediately makes you suspect trick photography. It isn’t. The same is true for the giant Australian cuttlefish, which when threatened cuddles itself around a rock, shape-shifting her tentacles to match the color and patterns in the surrounding algae, magically concealing her from predators. Still other cephalopods do the moving rock trick, mimicking the waves and shadows of the shallows, blending into the bottom, drifting like rocks or that sunken sneaker you lost as a child, yet moving at a speed never exceeding the waves or shadows. I feel an old Dylan song coming on…

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