The camouflage works because vertebrate visual systems find prey largely by detecting outlines. The branched lobes, which resemble algae or soft coral, disrupt the head's silhouette, and a mottled net-like pattern on the body handles the rest. The wobbegong compounds the effect by staying still and breathing without visible motion.
The strike is fast. Wobbegongs have highly protrusible jaws and long, needle-like fangs in both jaws, and can take fish in a fraction of a second by expanding the mouth and drawing prey in. There is at least one documented case of a tasselled wobbegong swallowing a bamboo shark nearly its own length.
Wobbegongs are sometimes described as attacking divers. The recorded incidents almost all follow people stepping on, cornering or handling a resting animal, which is what an ambush predator built to be trodden on will occasionally do.