To Sea, And Not To See

What does it take to not get noticed? A few years ago a biologist named Bill Saidel took a new look at some old fish, asked himself this question - and noticed something most unexpected. And what he noticed raises some other questions - about what it means to see.

Many creatures drastically change their appearance to camouflage themselves from predators. Saidel discovered that some of these creatures do not change their appearance very much. Instead, they have special built-in tricks. They have a special skin pattern that induce an observer to actively misinterpret. When you see one of these animals against a background pattern, your own visual system works to 'fill in' missing parts of the pattern.