Most mammals wear coats of brown, black, and gray, while parrots flash brilliant reds, reef fish shimmer in electric blue, and chameleons shift between greens and golds. This disparity is not random.

When Lorian E. Schweikert, Ph.D., reeled in a hogfish on a fishing trip to the Florida Keys, she noticed something strange after setting it down on the deck of the boat. Hogfish are known for their ...

Reef fish in different oceans often develop similar color patterns because evolution explores the same set of biological possibilities.

Why does a Caribbean angelfish sometimes resemble its Indo-Pacific cousin, even though they have never lived in the same ocean? Why do coral reefs harbor such a wide range of stripes, spots and ...

From red to white to orange to blue, fish flesh can land almost anywhere on the color spectrum. What's behind this huge variation? A lot of things — from genetics to bile pigments. And parsing the ...

Among aquarium enthusiasts who keep bettas, it is usually the male fish that are known as the "colorful ones." Oftentimes the males are favored over the females not only for their color, but also ...

A newly discovered visual system in deep-sea fish could allow them to discern predators from prey in the low-light conditions found at the bottom of the ocean, new research suggests. A team led by ...

While people and other vertebrates are color blind in dim light, some deep-sea fish may possess keen color vision to thrive in the near total darkness of their extreme environment thanks to a unique ...