fish research

Animals have a wide variation of skin and scales, according to Darwin, this is natural selection, where those with the most effective skin for survival have continued to breed and evolve. 
I did some brief secondary research into the characteristics of some animal's skin regarding survival. The main uses for skin are: camouflage, signalling, advertising, diversion.
I wanted to focus on this relating to fish as that is where my main interest in texture is:

Cleaner Wrasse - it signals its cleaning services to other fish through particular movements and is also recognisable by the thick black line running down its side

Zebrafish - has pigments in its skin that changes due to exposure to light; it has chromatophores (dark spots) which respond to 24 hours in dark or light, so to aid in blending in with surroundings.






Flounder - varying types of flatfish use their colouring to blend in by routinely altering the hue and patterm of their skin to match their surroundings.










Scorpionfish - resemble the reef so to hide from predators, but also to remain hidden from prey.







Mackerel - use countershading, so dark backs and light bellies so to blend in with the sky and sea floor when seen by predators. But also, fish that swim in schools; like mackerel, often have dark lateral lines running along their sides so that when seen all together it becomes hard to distinguish one fish from the next to predators. 




Foureye Butterflyfish - they use a false eyespot on the back of their body near the tail, so to confuse predators. This way, if attacked, it tricks the predator into attacking the least vulnerable area instead of the head.