Stripey Damselfish Use ‘Motion Dazzle’ As An Anti-Predator Strategy

How to hide from one’s enemies in plain view? Dazzle them with your brilliant stripes!

Humbug damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, on a reef in Lembeh, Indonesia. (Credit: Rickard Zerpe / CC BY 2.0)

I’ve written about why some reef dwelling fishes, particularly clownfish or anemonefish, are striped and how the direction of their stripes — vertical or horizontal — predicts their aggressiveness (read more about that here). But stripes on different species of reef dwelling fishes can serve other purposes.