Example 9d

All images copyright protected, © Doug Segar and Elaine Stamman Segar.

This one is much easier to see. Pretty obvious, right? Well, perhaps not. I did say that the octopus is the king of camouflage, although there are plenty of pretenders to that throne. In this image the octopus is sitting with its tentacles in a hole on the reef and its body extended upward. It's the white object. Can you see its eyes?

Octopi are masters of all forms of camouflage. They can totally change their color and pattern, from the white of this photograph to the brown mottled color in the previous photographs, all in the blink of an eye. They can totally transform their surface appearance from the rather smooth look in this photograph to the warty look in the previous photographs, also in the blink of an eye. Finally, they have no skeleton and can alter the shape of their body to conform to almost anything--to any crack or crevice on the reef--and they can squeeze through openings much narrower than would ever appear possible from their size. Sounds like Odo from Star Trek doesn't it?.