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Frogfish: The Ocean’s Disguise Artists

Biomimicry is one of evolution’s most mind-blowing avenues of adaptation. It’s one thing to adapt thanks to maxing out the biological limits of speed, or selecting for the ever-longer, better-feeding necks of giraffes or the ability to use a new, untapped food source at the bottom of the ocean. But to become another life form? It shows us that natural selection is not only a powerful force, but also a delicate one, fine-tuning things like colors and patterns like only the finest human artists can.

Above are three examples of frogfish biomimicry, a family of fish that separately mimics algae, sponges and even sea urchins. They evolved these costumes as a way to avoid predators and become better predators themselves. Check out an in-depth post about frogfish biomimicry at Why Evolution is True (wait until you see them eat!), and if you want more here’s a whole website (Comic Sans warning!) dedicated to frogfish camo.