Wet Life / 04 September, 2015
Red Art: Mastery of Camouflage
Living an invisible life
With its slim body, long snout and tartan-like pattern, the longnose hawkfish, Oxycirrhites typus, loves to lie and wait quietly on corals. Also known as ‘coral guards’, these colourful fishes lurk almost motionless waiting for prey to pass. A challenge to find, due to its almost perfect camouflage of a crosshatch pattern, showing a remarkable mimicry with the arrangement of the gorgonian branches that form its habitat, this one was virtually invisible until it moved. Some time the depths of the sea, reveal patterns and structures between animals of the natural world with an ethereal artistic beauty. The ability of Mother Nature to create art with living organisms never ceases to amaze: the planar arrangement of the gorgonian branches, the binary division at each node, the brilliant red colouring and specially the presence of a fish with its harmonic colour pattern, perfectly balanced within the design of the gorgonian.
Kimbe Bay
5°07'47.1"S | 150°30'12.4"E
West New Britain, Papua New Guinea