Hogfish 91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀטSee91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀי With Their Skin, Even When They91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיre Dead | The New York Times

Hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus) are plentiful in the Florida Keys, Bahamas, and Caribbean. Credit: Brian Gratwicke (CC BY 2.0)

was partly supported by an MBL Neurobiology Post Course Research award to co-author Lydia F. Naughton.

As a marine biologist, knew hogfish could change color to match their surroundings. But as an angler, she noticed something that wasn91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיt in the textbooks: Hogfish can camouflage even after they91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיre dead.

When Dr. Schweikert saw a hogfish with a conspicuous spearfishing hole through its body change color to match the texture of a boat91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיs deck, 91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀלit gave me this idea that the skin itself was 91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀטseeing91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀי the surrounding environment,91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀם she said.

New research by Dr. Schweikert and her team provides a compelling explanation for how and why hogfish blend into their background, even in the afterlife. In published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, they identified a mysterious new type of cell deep in the hogfish91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיs skin that might allow the fish not only to monitor its surroundings but also to edit its skin color.

Source: Hogfish 91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀטSee91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀי With Their Skin, Even When They91ŗ£½ĒĀŅĀיre Dead | The New York Times