Mimic Octopus - Magical Sea Creature

First let me say that, some of the world's greatest optical illusions were made by animals, not people! As we are usually just fascinated by the mystery of illusions, wether we used them for making impressive ads, or art; animals use those to survive. Yet, we still can't help ourselves but to admire their abillities to make them, without pens and sticks, without modern technology.

I present you Mimic Octopus which is a sort of octopus that has the amazing ability to mimic several other sea creatures. This creature is about 2 feet long and originally has brown and white stripes or spots covering its body.

Mimic Octopus in its "original" state

Mimic octopus was officially discovered in 1998. because until then, people used to think of this creature to be just another sort of animal. But little did they know, that in fact the creatures they were mistaking for sea snakes, lion-fishes, flat-fishes, brittle stars and about 10 more species, was in fact an octopus!

Here is the same creature you've seen in a picture above,
only this time pretending to be a lion-fish

Take a look at this amazing video and see how this magical creature imitates a sea snake:

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Mimic Octopus is making magical illusions to every living being's eye, by contorting its body and arms, and changing color. This ability to change shapes is called dynamic mimicry. Normal mimicry is when an animal mimics a single object - a strategy which does not always fool predators, often leading to discovery.

Creating an illusion to other
animals - looking like a sea snake

"transforming" into flat-fish

Few most common appearances of mimic octopus
yes, it's all just one creature!

Note that this mimic octopus is often confused with Wunderpus photogenicus, another recently discovered species. However, Wunderpus can be distinguished by the pattern of strong, fixed white markings on its body.

Wonderpus - another amazing, recently discovered
creature