Brilliant deep-red, it rivals the most expensive seafood in appearance. The royal red prawn looks like it belongs on a plate in a fine dining restaurant. In other parts of the world, that is exactly where it ends up. But in New Zealand, it is caught only as bycatch. Not targeted. Not marketed. Not celebrated. The colour is stunning. But the colour is also camouflage. Appearance deceives. Function protects. At depth, red light disappears. The royal red prawn's brilliant colour appears black in the dark waters of its deep habitat. This renders it invisible against the muddy seafloor. This is not a display colour. It is a hiding colour. The prawn that looks like a luxury item is actually trying not to be seen. Visibility is low. Survival is high. The ocean absorbs the red. The predator sees nothing. Two hundred to eight hundred metres down, it lives. The royal red prawn inhabits deep continental slopes and seamounts. It prefers muddy and sandy bottoms with stable temperatures. In New Zealand waters, it is most common on the Chatham Rise. It also occurs off the east coast of the South Island. It is found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. A cosmopolitan species of the deep. Distribution is global. Presence is local. During the day, it stays near the seafloor. Large aggregations of royal red prawns gather on the muddy bottom. They rest. They wait for night. Predators patrol these depths. Deep-sea fish, squid, and larger crustaceans hunt in the dark. The prawns hide. They rely on their camouflage. When disturbed, they flick their tails. They shoot backward. They disappear into a cloud of sediment. Motion creates cover. Stillness creates risk. Night brings them up. The royal red prawn rises toward the surface. It follows the daily migration of zooplankton and small crustaceans. It ascends hundreds of metres in the dark. Feeding occurs as it goes. Long, slender legs pick prey from the water column. The delicate body is a graceful swimmer. It moves backwards in rapid flicks of its tail. Efficiency is key. Energy is conserved. Highly prized elsewhere, ignored here. In the Mediterranean and parts of the Atlantic, the royal red prawn is targeted by commercial fisheries. It is sold at high prices. Its sweet, delicate flesh is considered a delicacy. But in New Zealand, it is caught only as bycatch. The small quantities that come up in trawl nets are usually discarded. Or kept for personal consumption. Value is contextual. Demand is absent. No one knows how many there are. Population trends are poorly understood. The royal red prawn lives too deep for regular surveys. No stock assessment has been conducted in New Zealand waters. We catch them occasionally. But we do not know whether the population is stable, declining, or increasing. The bycatch is small. But small can still be significant for a slow-growing deep-sea species. Uncertainty is inherent. Data is scarce. The deep sea is still largely unexplored. The Chatham Rise, where the royal red prawn is most common, is a vast underwater plateau. It covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometres. We have surveyed only a fraction of it. There are almost certainly more royal red prawns down there than we have ever caught. Living in the dark. Rising and falling with the light. Hiding in their brilliant red that is not red at all when you are too deep to see the sun. No one told it otherwise.