Short-term cycling of skin colouration in the blackspotted rockskipper Entomacrodus striatus.

Physiological colour change was investigated in the blackspotted rockskipper Entomacrodus striatus in Moorea, French Polynesia. Fish colour cycled with significant autocorrelation over the 30 min observation period and was not affected by observation temperature (27 and 31° C). Cycling depended most on dark and yellow pigments (as assayed by separation of colours via software), and therefore, it was hypothesized that short-term cycling was driven by melanophores and xanthophores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]