Changing color
How would you like to play hide-and-seek with a chameleon?
You’d have a hard time finding this tiny lizard. It can hide by changing
color! It can be green on a green leaf, yellow on yellow sand, and gray
on a gray rock.
The kind of shrimp called a prawn is an even better color changer than a
chameleon. The prawn can be green when it swims among green seaweed,
orange when it is near orange coral, and brown on brown rocks. At night,
when the water is dark blue, the prawn turns blue, too.
A champion color changer is the fish called a sole. It can turn yellow,
brown, blue, green, and even pink. It can even turn more than one color
at a time. If it lies on brown sand that has little yellow stones in it,
the sole’s body turns brown with yellow spots! Scientists once put a
sole into a tank that had a polka dot design on the bottom. The sole’s
body turned polka-dotted!
How do these animals change color? Under the animal’s skin are many
tiny, tiny sacs filled with color. Tubes like little tree branches reach
up from the sacs to the skin. Different kinds of light on the animal’s
skin make the tubes fill up with color, and this colors the skin.
An animal that can change color is lucky. It can stay hidden wherever it
goes.
Sole
Soles, and some other fish, can change color to match the sand over
which they swim. This sole has taken on a pink tint as it swims over
pink sand.
Scientists put this sole into a tank with a speckled bottom. The sole
wasn’t able to match the color and speckles very well.
The sole has matched the
color of this yellow sand
so well that it is nearly invisible.
