The cuttlefish is a master of camouflage. It has the ability to seemingly disappear into any natural background. But what about unnatural environments? A badly decorated living room is hardly what the typical cuttlefish might encounter on the bottom of the ocean.
Richard Hammond, the host of the BBC's Miracles of Nature, decided to find out. The show built a cuttlefish-sized living room with hideous decor inside an aquarium. It had vertical stripes, checkerboard patterns, and chintz. Then it released a cuttlefish into this aesthetic monstrosity.
The cuttlefish was well-motivated: it did not want to be publicly seen in such an environment. Although it was not able to precisely mimic the patterns in the room, it did a remarkably good job of vanishing into patterns, especially the ugly chintz sofa.
-via Twisted Sifter