We all know those stick insects camouflage champions. But here is a case of mimicry less known but equally elegant: the aptly named "leafy sea dragon" or Phycodurus eques.
is a teleost (read fish) of the family Syngnathidae (The seahorse) that lives in shallow waters of south-western Australia. Very mobile, its many sheet-like growths are not used for locomotion but camouflage. It feeds mainly on plankton and small crustaceans, and as for the male seahorse who carries the eggs.
About cryptisme camouflage.
Camouflage is a form of mimicry is to adopt the same color or same shape as its environment. Another form of mimicry is to imitate a pattern aposematic (bright warning of poisonous animals, for example) to trick a possible predator (ie Batesian and Mullerian mimicry).
leafy sea dragon Our practice here so camouflage, imitating as well as (homotypic) and color (cryptic coloration) clumps of algae in which he saw as the Sargassum (photo).
Reference sites: Wikipedia article on- Phycodurus eques
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