Nature gave scientists another idea is to create a perfect camouflage. Those already have the inhabitants of the deep spaces – from 16 types of local fish found ability to absorb almost the entire incident light. It turns out that until a man develops a complex and expensive ultracurve materials, like Vantablack, in nature, they have been implemented a long time ago and much easier.
The discovery was made by American scientists from Duke University. They found some fish that live at depths of between 300 m and below where no sunlight penetrates, the unique ability to disguise themselves. The fact that there is not total darkness – on the contrary, many deep sea creatures have developed the ability to bioluminescence. And so any, even a weak reflection of another light on the body of a fish can give its location to predators.
But such species as the Pacific black dragon went even further – this underwater monster black body, absorbing light, transparent teeth and a bright bait on the barbel. When the skin of the predator absorbs 99.5% of the light, and all around pitch darkness, the victim is in principle unable to see that next to the bait something. And most interestingly, this effect is achieved just a high concentration of melanin pigment in the body of these fish.
Of melanin in their skin so much that its cells are piled on top of each other, the density of their location prohibitive. So if some part of the photons will not be absorbed by one cell, it is guaranteed to perish in another. The same principle, only using nanotubes used in synthetic ultracare materials. That’s just to speed up melanin production in living tissue is much easier and cheaper than working with nanomaterials. And scientists believe that this approach can easily be used as a basis for creating a new camouflage.
Source — Smithsonian