#leaffish

Brought to you by a marine biologist and not-a-plant! Really! It’s not!

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Color in the natural world is kind of fascinating to think about, especially the “why” those colors were chosen and for what purpose. I mean, when you get down to it, as mammals, we humans are pretty blessed to be able to see so many colors, and it has everything to do with evolution, our ancestor’s diets, the fact that we are diurnal (it means awake in the daytime, although I find that to be a torture placed on me by society), and many other factors. Other animals, like birds, can see even more, reaching into the ultraviolet range of color, using this for fantastical displays for their mates and rivals. Other animals are brightly colored because it tells their predators that they are poisonous (or they’re hoping to trick a predator into *thinking* they are another poisonous species when in fact, the imposter is delicious). 

But then you get to animals that are bland - brown, green, black - they do their best to look like their surroundings to hide from their predators. Some animals, like today’s Amazon Leaffish (ALF), go even further to look exactly like something that isn’t what their predator is looking for or what their prey expects.

Unlike many other Pocket Camp friends we’ve covered, the ALF was introduced last year for fall, appearing in freshwater at Lost Lure Creek from the end of August to the end of December 2021. So, who knows, maybe you’ll have another opportunity to catch this thing this fall.

Now, the ALF is basically just as it sounds - a fish that looks like a leaf and it lives in the Amazon River basin of South America. As unique as that may sounds, *lots* of fish have evolved to look like plant matter, and many animals that have evolved to look like plants, other animals, rocks, etc. So, the ALF isn’t alone, and there are plenty of other species of leaffish out there, too. The three species native to South America, including the ALF, are within Family Polycentridae. There are also Asian and African leaffish that belong to other groups. The ALF is named to species - Monocirrhus polyacanthus. It’s game plan it to float head-down in slow or stagnant waters around plant debris, mimicking the look and “behavior” of a dead leaf. This helps it not only avoid its own predators, but also to sneak up on its mostly invertebrate prey items.

There are many different types of camouflage and many methods for performing them. Most camouflage is best when the animal is not moving, so it can easily blend in with its surroundings. Organisms that  look like a real thing in the environment that is not really important to the observer (prey or predator) is said to have mimesis type camouflage. If you’re like the ALF and you go the extra mile to also *act* like the thing you are mimicking, that acting is called “cryptic behavior”. Like all struggles in nature, the camouflaging abilities of prey and the predator’s ability to perceive are in a constant arm’s race. 

Leopard Ctenopomas stalking freeze-dried krill. They love that stuff.