Did I Hear Cantina Music?

Dinner in the octopus cafe - interesting that the octopus and the starfish share many of the same colors when in the same environment, and yet one eats the other if opportunity knocks.  In the Darwin vs. Lamark discussion, what are the factors that help these two creatures share some similar attributes?  Is it the mineral content in the water, sunlight, food supply.....things ingested OR are there things in the environment that make being beige and burgundy safer than being some other color? 

Are the current beige and burgundy starfish and octopi ancestors of those early beige and burgundy great, great, great, great, great, etc. grandparents who were not eaten or destroyed?  Were the burgundy and beige ancestors truly the fittest of the fit - did the fittest survive to reproduce? 

I wonder what colors these two species appear to be without the illumination of the artificial light of the aquarium?  Do they both appear to be the same colors in the wild OR is something in their most exterior derma-layer sending similar messages to predators that has nothing to do with color?  I hope they are studying these questions at the Mote Aquarium, or any one of a dozen or so marine-life magnet high schools in Florida.  Since most of the states that border an ocean must have several aquatic or marine research high schools, someone must be researching like-colors in the food chain...well.....I hope so!

When in the binding and held in place by the book rings........pages get a little tight.  Until this minibook is actually in use, it will continue to be very clam-shell like and practically snap shut during each attempted opening.  Although more time consuming, and seemingly less durable, the stitched-binding minbook is, once again, looking more appealing!  On almost every full page spread, they will lay flat and some sketchers even sketch right across the spine as if the two pages become one.