Now you see me, now you don't! Lessons in camouflage

The sea is a unique ecosystem hiding many suprises. You may be passing over a 2 kilo octopus or a 1m fish and not see it unless your eye is trained to make out their unique shapes from the exact same color background.
Camouflage is employed by fish, cephalopods, shells and other animals, in an attempt to protect themselves from enemies or carnivores that want to eat them.
For example, at two meters of water in front of a busy swimming area, swimmers have no idea that below them lie hiding two masters of camouflage, a juvenile Sepia officinalis and one of the few species of Scorpionfish that live in the Mediterranean.



Did you spot the cuttlefish (soupia)?

check out a new small video of the same animal playing with another baby cuttlefish just before the middle of the clip
on our you tube channel


This scorpionfish, Scorpaena porcus as the name suggests, has a potent poison on its spines, causing the biggest and strongest men or women to cry like babies for approximately three days, if they are unlucky enough to accidentally tread on one.
It is in no way aggressive and relies purely on its camouflage to get its' food, by sitting as in meditation, completely still
waiting for an unlucky fish or crabs to swim by and then opening its gills slightly, creating suction.
The poison is used purely for protection, for bigger enemies. Scorpionfish are quite hard to identify, but we know this one is Scorpaena porcus because the tentacles over its eye are longer than it is wide, and it lacks the bottom chin appendages!

The Green Ormer

These shells are popularly called sea-ears and the scientific name Haliotis comes from the Greek halios and otis meaning ear.
They are a single shelled gastropod that crawls over the rocks feeding on algae. It can grow up to 12 cm and the interior of the shell is a magnificent wavy mother-of-pearl covering. They have separate sexes and breed in the summer. Masters of camouflage with calcareous algae and other seaweeds living on their shell, they can easily be sniffed out by octopus..look closely in the following picture


Their flesh is prized both by men and octopi... today, on what it seems like the last dive of the year,..a very big ear-shell was just about to be eaten by a viciously hungry octopus, when "tank girl" came to the rescue to get a photo...the octopus left slowly towards the right leaving the very expanded shell to its peace, towards the left.
In this incident we can see the rare situation of the shell's mantle being completely expanded outwards giving it a frilly white margin, and the octopus looking very annoyed...
It seems the French love this shell and it has a history for heavy fishing north until the Channel Islands, where they first beat the hard flesh and then fry it////it is delicious!

So, to close off this first year of Medi-sea..adventures

Sea ear, Sea ear
if you can hear
all we want for New Year

No more all around trawling gear/fear

MARINE PROTECTED AREAS IN GREECE, NOW


and many love Hugs and Fishes
to All and to All good night

Octopus - the magnificent 8

Everyone who visits the Greek islands is familiar with the picture of the hanging bodies of the octopus. Famous for his tasteful meat octopus is the most popular food for the summer. Fortunately the population of the octopus doesn’t seem to be endangered because of the fishing. If it lives in good conditions with plenty of food can grow up to 10kgr extremely fast. It is very famous for his skills and abilities that make it one of the most impressive marine animals and a very good hunter. During the day he hunts near his nest but on the other hand in the night makes long walks searching for food (video) It can camouflaged near the rocks and burry himself in the sand (photo) in order to do ambush his victims. Also it seems to be very clever as it can open cans and glass jars if it wants to take the containment. It has been proven that it can learn and remember tricks for a long time. Octopuses are territorial animals and usually in the area you will find individuals of the same size. Some of them are very good builders and make a well style nest using rocks over the sand. They also use rocks to block the entrance of the nest (video). When the octopus is afraid it makes a red and white coloration ring around his eyes and ejects ink (photo).

A night excursion! filmed by Michalis Adamtziloglou

An octopus trying to mime the color of the sand

Burried alive to ambuscade the enemies.

Reproduction time, one of the male tentacles has the hectocotylus which is the tentacle that carries the spermatophores. The female gametes are inside the mantle. These two animals seem to be afraid of each other.

Ejecting ink to have more time to run and hide.

A well style nest.

Octopus uses rocks to hide and block the entrance of the his nest.

After mating come the eggs some species can lay up to 500.000 eggs. The female guards the strings of eggs for about a month. She is a very caring mother!, this time however she left her nest for a little sea stroll.

Octopus is a usual issue for ancient Greek amphoras (this from the Minoan civilazation)

Octopus also can be protagonist or inspire some very funny situations

Baby hunter!

-First picture from Artaki and second from Daphni beach. Both places are at central-west Evia island.
-Third picture taken from a small aquarium. The cuttlefish isn't bigger than 1,5cm!!!!
-Cuttlefish are very good in ambushing for his food. For that purpose they can change rapidly their colors and bury themselves under the sand (first photo)
-They can hunt other fishes and crustaceans with similar size.
-They can grow up to 45cm.