There’s a reason fashion designers look to animal prints for inspiration. Creatures have evolved a dizzying array of patterns: stripes, spots, diamonds, chevrons, hexagons and even mazelike designs.

The dazzling variety of coral fish. On the left is the copperband butterflyfish, on the right the Picasso triggerfish. Nemo, alias Amphiprion ocellaris, belongs to the clownfish group, which includes ...

Close your eyes—now picture yourself in the warm summer sun in Southern Italy. The sea is glittering and you can smell the refreshing, salty breeze. Sitting in your lounge chair, you’re wrapped in a ...

Some patterns arise simply or randomly, but others develop via complex, precise interactions of pattern-generating systems. Their beauty aside, the intricacies of these systems are inspiring the ...

Most anemonefishes are striped and the direction of their stripes — vertical or horizontal — correlate with their levels of territorial aggression A new study reveals that anemonefishes display ...

Coral reef fish are known for the wide range of colors and patterns they display, but the mechanisms governing the acquisition of these characteristics are still poorly understood. These researchers ...

Many people tend to think of clownfish, with their distinctive white bars against an orange, red, or black background, as a friendly sort of fish, perhaps influenced to some extent by the popular ...