Mimic octopus

A mimic octopus on dark sand at Anilao in the Philippines, showing the brown and white stripes it uses for its impressions. Divers first noticed it in 1998 off northern Sulawesi, and it was formally named Thaumoctopus mimicus in 2005. No other animal here has such a repertoire. Trailing its arms while it swims, it passes for a venomous lionfish; flattened and gliding over the bottom, it becomes a flatfish; tucked into a burrow with two banded arms waving, it looks like a sea snake. When territorial damselfish harass it, it has been seen picking the sea snake, one of the damselfish's own predators.