evanheit
Just floundering around
This picture was photographed in the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. This is the highly coveted Southern Flounder (Paralichthys lethostimga), which can be found natively within the tropical and temperate waters of the eastern Atlantic ocean. Within this picture, is not one but two flounders. The most obvious flounder seen in the bottom of the picture, has just emerged from the sand and gravel at the bottom of the tank. However, the second flounder is much more camouflaged and is mostly buried underneath the substrate, but its eyes and outline can be seen next to the rock (the darker black patch). Flounders have cryptic coloration of seafloor to hide from predators, but can also change their color on demand to match the substrate around them! Flounders have melanophores which contain colored pigments, and iridocytes which reflect light. Through specialized nerve cells, a flounder can adapt its body color to what can see via light stimuli through its eyes and retina. This adaptive camouflaging allows them to be brown and beige to match the gravel in this aquarium, or to be white and grey to match the sandy bottom of the ocean floor. Studies have showed that flounders can match even complex backgrounds like checkerboards of different sizes and shapes in a mere 2-8 seconds. More information can be found within this scholarly article here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8587602
Just floundering around
This picture was photographed in the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. This is the highly coveted Southern Flounder (Paralichthys lethostimga), which can be found natively within the tropical and temperate waters of the eastern Atlantic ocean. Within this picture, is not one but two flounders. The most obvious flounder seen in the bottom of the picture, has just emerged from the sand and gravel at the bottom of the tank. However, the second flounder is much more camouflaged and is mostly buried underneath the substrate, but its eyes and outline can be seen next to the rock (the darker black patch). Flounders have cryptic coloration of seafloor to hide from predators, but can also change their color on demand to match the substrate around them! Flounders have melanophores which contain colored pigments, and iridocytes which reflect light. Through specialized nerve cells, a flounder can adapt its body color to what can see via light stimuli through its eyes and retina. This adaptive camouflaging allows them to be brown and beige to match the gravel in this aquarium, or to be white and grey to match the sandy bottom of the ocean floor. Studies have showed that flounders can match even complex backgrounds like checkerboards of different sizes and shapes in a mere 2-8 seconds. More information can be found within this scholarly article here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8587602