Scorpionfish rapidly change colour in response to their background

Background:
To facilitate background matching in heterogenous environments, some animals rapidly change body
colouration. Marine predatory fishes might use this ability to hide from predators and prey. Here, we
focus on scorpionfishes (Scorpaenidae), well-camouflaged, bottom-dwelling sit-and-wait predators. We
tested whether Scorpaena maderensis and Scorpaena porcus adjust body luminance and hue in response
to three artificial backgrounds and thereby achieve background matching. Both scorpionfish species are
also red fluorescent, which could contribute to background matching at depth. Therefore, we tested
whether red fluorescence is also regulated in response to different backgrounds. The darkest and the
lightest backgrounds were grey, while the third background was orange of intermediate luminance.
Scorpionfish were placed on all three backgrounds in a randomised repeated measures design. We
documented changes in scorpionfish luminance and hue with image analysis and calculated contrast to
the backgrounds. Changes were quantified from the visual perspective of two potential prey fishes, the
triplefin Tripterygion delaisi and the goby Pomatoschistus flavescens. Additionally, we measured
changes in the area of scorpionfish red fluorescence. Because scorpionfish changed quicker than initially
expected, we measured luminance change at a higher temporal resolution in a second experiment.

Results:
Both scorpionfish species rapidly adjusted luminance and hue in response to a change of background.
From prey visual perspective, scorpionfishes’ body achromatic and chromatic contrasts against the
background were high, indicating imperfect background matching. Chromatic contrasts differed
considerably between the two observer species, highlighting the importance of choosing natural
observers with care when studying camouflage. Scorpionfish displayed larger areas of red fluorescence
with increasing luminance of the background. With the second experiment, we showed that about 50%
of the total luminance change observed after one minute is achieved very rapidly, in five to ten seconds.

Conclusion:
Both scorpionfish species change body luminance and hue in response to different backgrounds within
seconds. While the achieved background matching was suboptimal for the artificial backgrounds, we
propose that the observed changes were intended to reduce detectability, and are an essential strategy to
camouflage in the natural environment.