Animal camouflage: 15 examples of environmental mimicry

These creatures are masters of mimicry, they have evolved to mimic the environment. Some of them use camouflage as a cunning plan to catch prey, while others hide from predators.

1. A goby (Pleurosicya mossambica) is photographed on the Watery Eye coral (Cynarina lacrymalis) in Tulamben in Bali, Indonesia. 

2. The bearded rufffish mixes with soft corals. Rufffish are bottom-dwelling fish that have the ability to change their color according to their environment. 

3. A toothy goby (Pleurosicya mossambica) hides on a sea coral in Malaysia. 

4. The long-nosed hawkfish (Oxycirrhites typus) disguised itself as gorgonaria, a type of marine plant or soft coral in the Red Sea in Egypt. 

5. A pregnant pygmy seahorse disguises itself as coral off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. 

6. Close-up shows the eye of the fish Thysanophrys chiltonae disguised as sand on the sea floor in the Bunaken National Park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. 

7. An orangutan crab (Achaeus japonicu) is camouflaged on soft corals off the island of Siamil in the Malaysian province of Sabah. 

8. Harlequin fish (Solenostomus paradoxus) in the Andaman Sea in Thailand. 

9. A triggerfish (Rudarius minutus) is camouflaged among the feeding tentacles of coral polyps in the Lembeh Strait in Sulawesi, Indonesia. 

10. The triggerfish (family Balistidae) is combined with a marine plant. 

11. Devil sea ruff (Inimicus didactylus) on the sea floor in the waters off the village of Tulamben in Bali, Indonesia. 

12. Katydid, side view, disguised as a leaf in Singapore. 

13. The moth mimics among the leaves. 

14. The cricket imitates the shape and color of the leaves of the plant on which it lives in Quito, Ecuador. 

15. The pupa of the killer beetle (Reduviidae) hides from predators in Singapore.