Flat Fishes

These guys crack me up.

I recently got to spend some time at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (which I LOVE because it's the best aquarium EVER), and I was reminded how many cool things our oceans are populated with.  Unfortunately, some of the coolest things are very hard to get pictures of - deep sea jellyfish are nearly invisible to avoid being eaten in the open waters, grumpy-looking eels spend much of their time in caves and crevices while waiting for the next meal, and octopi and great white sharks hate the camera flashes that interrupt their darkened environments (so don't flash them, okeedoke?).

But just because there aren't the best photo opportunities at every tank, doesn't mean you won't see cool things!  Check out the flounder up top again.  These guys are an amazing nod to evolution.  They start out as quite normal fish, and even when you see one not laying on the bottom, it looks quite normal.  And then you see the face.  Both eyes have somewhat shifted to one side of their faces, but have left the mouth behind, making an appropriate flounder emoticon something like :u  They're like the Picassos of the sea.  They can also change color right before your eyes, to look even more like the sand underneath and around them, because if you're just going to lay there when a predator comes by, you have the best odds if you're invisible!

:u