Flat+Fish



Flatfish Members of the flatfish family, sand dabs and flounders, have an evolutionary advantage over many colorfully decorated ocean neighbors in that they are able to adapt their body coloration to different environments. These aquatic chameleons have flattened bodies that are well-suited to life along the ocean floor in the shallower areas of the continental shelf that they inhabit. they also have remarkably sensitive color vision that registers the subtlest gradations on the sea bottom and in the sea life around them. Information about the coloration of the environment is carried through the nervous system to chromatophores, which are pigment-carrying skin cells. These chromatophores are able to accurately reproduce not only the colors but also the texture of the ocean floor. Each time that a sand dab or flounder itself in a new environment, the pattern on the body of the fish adapts to fit in with the color and texture around it.

Sand, coloration, colorful, evolutionary, decorated, adapt, environment, aquatic, suited, shallower, shelf, continental, remarkably, sensitive, vision, subtlest, gradations, texture


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