DEFENCE TACTICS
The environment that sea creatures inhabit offers them wide opportunities for feeding. However, most of the time, they too are in danger of being hunted by other creatures. For this reason defence mechanisms are of vital importance for living creatures beneath the sea. These creatures’ defence and hunting techniques are really surprising. Although they possess no consciousness or intelligence, they exhibit the most well planned behaviour patterns. Some defend themselves from their enemies by mimicking another living creature, and others use poisonous spines. Yet others hide by demonstrating a remarkable resemblance to the colours and shapes of the environment they exist in. This is the camouflage method.
Camouflage is one of the most interesting techniques sea creatures use to protect themselves. Thanks to camouflage, fish can become quite invisible to their enemies. The bodies of these living things blend in with their environment to an amazing degree. To such extent that at first glance it is really hard to tell if they are plant or animal.
One of the living things, which protect itself by this method, is the scorpion fish.
It is impossible to distinguish a scorpion fish, hidden motionless among the coral, from its surroundings. Thanks to this property, the fish is saved from falling prey to big fish. The same property also allows it to hunt easily, without being seen.
This scorpion fish, perhaps the most interesting example of its kind, uses its claws as hooks while swimming. It moves along on the bottom of the sea, ready at all times to protect itself from any danger that might spring up around it. In an instant of danger, the scorpion fish rapidly deploys into the sand, with the aim of camouflaging. It submerges, and within moments becomes invisible. To the outside observer, it’s nearly impossible to make out the motionless scorpion fish lying on the sea bed.
Another creature living beneath the sea which hides itself by camouflaging is the crab. Whenever danger arises, the crab conceals itself by burrowing into the sand and remaining there until the threat has passed. But at the same time it does not forget to keep its eyes, which is specifically created for this purpose, above the sand, so that it can still monitor what is going on around it.
Yet another sea creature which camouflages itself is the flounder. While this fish is moving along the surface of the water, a very interesting thing happens. The fish perceives the colour of the sea-bed over which it is swimming, and immediately changes its colour pattern to match it. It can change from a light grey colour, in a rocky or sandy area, to a green pattern when entering a region heavily infested with seaweed. This fish dwells in sandy areas, and it can immediately alter its pattern to match this background.
The underwater animals we have described so far were created so as to be able to camouflage their colours, tissues, and even their eyes. Eyes, that remain elevated even when the rest of their body lies buried beneath the sand, enabling them to safely examine their surroundings in concealment much like a periscope in a submarine.
Cuttlefish are also known as “camouflage experts.” These creatures possess the ability to change the pattern and colour of their skin in a very short time.
Appropriate colour changes seen in these creatures are a clear sign of a conscious defence mechanism. It is clear that a fish cannot possess the kind of intelligence or consciousness required to instantaneously blend in to the background.
Even if we assume that it does possess them, how can it know what the necessary physiological mechanisms are to bring these changes about?
By what means are these mechanisms placed within a body, and how are they made to work?
A simple fish which possesses neither the power of thought, discernment, or the ability to plan ahead, cannot possibly come into possession of these qualities all by itself.
It is also obvious that these complex systems which enable colour-changing to take place could not have formed in these creatures by coincidence.
The author of these miracles of nature is God, Who created all these living things from nothing and endowed them with their innate defensive and survival mechanisms.
The environment that sea creatures inhabit offers them wide opportunities for feeding. However, most of the time, they too are in danger of being hunted by other creatures. For this reason defence mechanisms are of vital importance for living creatures beneath the sea. These creatures’ defence and hunting techniques are really surprising. Although they possess no consciousness or intelligence, they exhibit the most well planned behaviour patterns. Some defend themselves from their enemies by mimicking another living creature, and others use poisonous spines. Yet others hide by demonstrating a remarkable resemblance to the colours and shapes of the environment they exist in. This is the camouflage method.
Camouflage is one of the most interesting techniques sea creatures use to protect themselves. Thanks to camouflage, fish can become quite invisible to their enemies. The bodies of these living things blend in with their environment to an amazing degree. To such extent that at first glance it is really hard to tell if they are plant or animal.
One of the living things, which protect itself by this method, is the scorpion fish.
It is impossible to distinguish a scorpion fish, hidden motionless among the coral, from its surroundings. Thanks to this property, the fish is saved from falling prey to big fish. The same property also allows it to hunt easily, without being seen.
This scorpion fish, perhaps the most interesting example of its kind, uses its claws as hooks while swimming. It moves along on the bottom of the sea, ready at all times to protect itself from any danger that might spring up around it. In an instant of danger, the scorpion fish rapidly deploys into the sand, with the aim of camouflaging. It submerges, and within moments becomes invisible. To the outside observer, it’s nearly impossible to make out the motionless scorpion fish lying on the sea bed.
Another creature living beneath the sea which hides itself by camouflaging is the crab. Whenever danger arises, the crab conceals itself by burrowing into the sand and remaining there until the threat has passed. But at the same time it does not forget to keep its eyes, which is specifically created for this purpose, above the sand, so that it can still monitor what is going on around it.
Yet another sea creature which camouflages itself is the flounder. While this fish is moving along the surface of the water, a very interesting thing happens. The fish perceives the colour of the sea-bed over which it is swimming, and immediately changes its colour pattern to match it. It can change from a light grey colour, in a rocky or sandy area, to a green pattern when entering a region heavily infested with seaweed. This fish dwells in sandy areas, and it can immediately alter its pattern to match this background.
The underwater animals we have described so far were created so as to be able to camouflage their colours, tissues, and even their eyes. Eyes, that remain elevated even when the rest of their body lies buried beneath the sand, enabling them to safely examine their surroundings in concealment much like a periscope in a submarine.
Cuttlefish are also known as “camouflage experts.” These creatures possess the ability to change the pattern and colour of their skin in a very short time.
Appropriate colour changes seen in these creatures are a clear sign of a conscious defence mechanism. It is clear that a fish cannot possess the kind of intelligence or consciousness required to instantaneously blend in to the background.
Even if we assume that it does possess them, how can it know what the necessary physiological mechanisms are to bring these changes about?
By what means are these mechanisms placed within a body, and how are they made to work?
A simple fish which possesses neither the power of thought, discernment, or the ability to plan ahead, cannot possibly come into possession of these qualities all by itself.
It is also obvious that these complex systems which enable colour-changing to take place could not have formed in these creatures by coincidence.
The author of these miracles of nature is God, Who created all these living things from nothing and endowed them with their innate defensive and survival mechanisms.
From Video Harun Yahya : SPLENDOR IN THE SEAS
