Photo of the Week

We are excited to bring back our Photo of the Week section so stay tuned for new content coming soon! In the meantime, take a look at these fantastic pictures from our teachers.

“confused” flounder

July 14, 2014

Most flatfish are dark on top (top left) to camouflage with the ocean floor and clear or white underneath (bottom left), but the science crew on NOAA Ship Oregon II found a rather “confused” specimen (right.)

Photo: Crystal Davis

Flatfish include fish such as flounder, halibut and turbot. These fish begin their life swimming vertically in the water. However, as they get older they sink to the bottom and their eyes move to one side of their body. They then spend the rest of their life on the bottom of the ocean floor. Luckily their top half matches the ocean floor and they are easily camouflaged from predators. The bottom half of the flounder on the ocean floor is clear or white. This flounder is very confused. He should be a clear or light white on the bottom but as you can see his bottom half matches his top half. This could be due to a mutation but no one on the boat is exactly sure why he looks this way. This is one of the most interesting things I have seen so far. In fact, no one on the boat had seen this before." - Crystal Davis

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