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Water
Crazy Camouflage
Instructions
Create a model that shows how a fish known as a flounder is able to blend into a variety of environments.
What You'll Need
- flounder drawing (black-and-white printout)
- sandy seafloor background drawings (color printout or black-and-white printout)
- scissors
- crayons or colored pencils
- sandpaper, sand, pebbles, fabric, buttons, and other materials to create a model of the seafloor (optional)
- blue cellophane (optional)
What To Do
Cut out the line drawing of the flounder.
Print out one of the backgrounds (color printout or black-and-white printout). Then use crayons or colored pencils to fill in the top of the flounder's body so that it blends in with the background.
NOTE: If you use the black-and-white background, color the background first, then color the flounder so the fish blends with the background.
Try More
Make Your Own Sea Floor
Take it to the next level by creating your own backgrounds from scratch! Try a rocky bottom or a coral reef .
You can decorate these environments with sandpaper, fabric, buttons, and so on. The main goal is to give the background a variety of colors and textures. Then use crayons to color the flounder so it hides well against the environment you created.
Looking Like Water
In water, a flounder is perfectly camouflaged. A predator looking up at a flounder from below wouldn't see it because the flounder can turn the color of water and blend in.
Print out another line drawing of a flounder and glue a piece of blue cellophane over it. Or color the other side (i.e. the non-sandy side) of the flounder a water color, as if it's in water, maybe adding wavy lines (waves), and hold clear cellophane over it. This shows how the flounder might look to a predator swimming below as the flounder swims along the surface.
Image Credits:
all photos: courtesy of AMNH