Wallace and Lorenz question on colors on coral reef fish answered at last

What is it about?

Why in coral reefs there is such an abundant of animals with coloration that seems to expose them so much to be seen to predators and to their prey? Why don't they hide with camouflage? The hypothesis put forward in this paper answer these questions and brings under the same theoretical framework coral reef animals and other bright animals like macaws and hummingbirds. According to it, diurnal coral reef fish live in which swim in clear waters against highly contrasting and unpredictable background (colorful corals) live in a “hyper-visible world”, in which camouflage is basically impossible. In opposition, non-predator-species such macaws and hummingbirds that possess effective defenses against predators live in a “carefree world” where concealment is simply not needed. When pressures for camouflage relaxes, the expression of other evolutionary functions for body coloration that benefits from conspicuousness (such as sexual, territorial, etc) are free to evolve.

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Why is it important?

This paper presents a scientific hypothesis that provides an answer to the open evolutionary conundrum that challenged minds such as the co-author of the natural selection theory, Alfred Wallace, and the Nobel Prize Konrad Lorenz.