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One of the things that fascinates me about fish
is the multitude of strategies they use
to survive. So far many
fish that live on these Kimberley reefs
camouflage is the key.
And of course on the most common camouflage methods
is to be drab, to be mottled
to merge and camouflage yourself
with the background
things like the triple-tailed wrasse use this to
great effect, and can hide in the shadows
underneath some of these ledgers
and they just basically can't be seen for most of the
time. Alternative to being
inconspicuous, is to be as conspicuous
as possible, and some fish
like juvenile sweetlips
get *** colours and they show off
and they wriggle around and they look
as weird as possible, so this
in some cases might mimic a
toxic flatworm or a nudibranch for example
or perhaps a poisonous scorpion
fish, or lion fish.
And if you can't camouflage, if you
have bright colours, then one of the best strategies
is to stay close to the reef.
Tight coral heads
lots of little gaps, you can dart in there
in a flash if something appears
and of course, if you're a big predator, you've got no chance
of getting one of these little tiny fish out
and this is a great strategy that's used
by many of the smaller fish on
the reef, things like damselfish for example.
Otherwise, safety in numbers
if you live in a big school
as many as possible, then the probability
that you get eaten is going to be greatly reduced.
And others, like these juvenile
stripped catfish
use the same strategy as zebras
so there's lots of little stripes,
fast moving fish, dense
school, and as a predator comes
it doesn't know which one to pick on.
So these same strategies are also
important if you're a predator
so things like the lionfish can camouflage
themselves and look like a featherstar
or some piece of coral, and as they
wave around in the bottom of
the reef there, little fish swim quite close
and they can just grab them
And another strategy if you're a predator
of sorts is to hide in a little tube
or to hide in a piece of coral
and like the saber-tooth lenny, an
unsuspecting fish swims past, you can dart
out of your tube, grab a piece of the fish
and dart back into the safety of the tube and you've
got your meal for the day. So these are just
some of the strategies that the fish of the Kimberley
are using to survive, but ultimately
it's all about staying safe as long
as you can and surviving to reproduce.