Why camouflage

Another tactic is disruptive coloration, when animals disguise their identification and location through color patterns. Rather than hiding their identities, some organisms, like the monarch butterfly , use warning coloration, also known as aposematism, to signal to predators that they pack a toxic punch. Mimicry is another useful tactic. For example, the nonvenomous scarlet king snake mimics the color patterns of a deadly coral snake as a way to avoid danger.

Countershading is a tactic used by animals with a dark top half and a light lower half. When a shark, for example, is seen from above, it blends in with the darker ocean below, becoming invisible to fishers and swimmers. Olfactory camouflage involves smell instead of color. For example, the California ground squirrel chews up rattlesnake skin into a paste and applies it to its tail to discourage and confuse rattlesnakes. For instance, animals with fur use different camouflage tactics than those with feathers and scales, since fur takes weeks or months to grow and change color, while scales and feathers can shed and change colors quickly.

Creatures that live in groups have different tactics from those that are solitary. For example, the black-and-white stripes of a zebra herd may create a camouflage that can confuse predators. If the predator is colorblind, for instance, the prey does not have to blend in with its background. Some animals, like octopuses , have biochromes , microscopic pigments that absorb and reflect light to change the actual color of the animal.

By: Tom Harris. In war, the function of camouflage is very simple: It is used to hide yourself and your equipment from the enemy. People have been using camouflage in some form or another from the beginning of human civilization.

In fact, the basic idea of camouflage predates humans entirely. It comes from the natural adaptations that let animals blend in with their environment. In the past years, camouflage has played a crucial role in most countries' military operations. In this article, we'll look at the basic idea of military camouflage to understand how it helps soldiers defeat the enemy.

Scientists are researching ways to make a soldier blend in to the battlefield by making them virtually invisible to the eye. Learn about the camouflage of the future in this Discovery Channel video. The most basic camouflage is the sort worn by soldiers on the battlefield. Conventional camouflage clothing has two basic elements that help conceal a person: color and pattern. Camouflage material is colored with dull hues that match the predominant colors of the surrounding environment.

In jungle warfare, camouflage is typically green and brown, to match the forest foliage and dirt. In the desert, military forces use a range of tan colors.

Camouflage for snowy climates is colored with whites and grays. To complete the concealment, soldiers paint their face with colors matching the camouflage material.

Camouflage material may have a single color, or it may have several similarly colored patches mixed together.

The reason for using this sort of pattern is that it is visually disruptive. The meandering lines of the mottled camouflage pattern help hide the contour -- the outline -- of the body. When you look at a piece of mottled camouflage in a matching environment, your brain naturally "connects" the lines of the colored blotches with the lines of the trees , ground, leaves and shadows.

This affects the way you perceive and recognize the person or object wearing that camouflage. Human perception naturally categorizes things in the world as separate objects. When you look at a scene, you are gathering an immense amount of information with your eyes and other senses.

In order for your conscious mind to make any sense out of this information, your brain has to break it down into component parts. When your brain perceives a long, vertical area of brown with green blotches connected to it, you perceive a tree. And when your brain perceives many, many individual trees in a given area, you perceive a forest. One thing your brain is always looking for when analyzing visual information is continuity. Imagine a stack of 12 blocks.

If all of the blocks are colored red, you perceive the pile as one unit. Dunn, Margery G. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service.

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You cannot download interactives. New research suggests that the way chameleons change color is very different from what scientists had assumed. Join filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer Jason Jaacks as he explains how the color change is actually controlled by nanocrystals in a top layer of the lizards' skin. The common bluebottle Graphium sarpedon luctatius has uncommon eyes.

Discover how their vision equips them for survival. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. Skip to content. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Classroom. Encyclopedic Entry Vocabulary. A camouflaged owl nearly disappears into a tree trunk.

Photograph by Steve Irvine, MyShot. Also called pelage. Also called camouflage. Also called silkweed. Media Credits The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. Last Updated Aug.

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Micronesian Nudibranchs. View Photograph. View Video. Camouflage is often used by prey as a way to disguise themselves from predators. It is also used by predators to conceal themselves as they stalk their prey. There are several different types of camouflage, including concealing coloration, disruptive coloration, disguise, and mimicry. Concealing coloration allows an animal to blend into its environment, hiding it from predators.

Some animals have fixed camouflage, such as snowy owls and polar bears, whose white coloration helps them blend in with the Arctic snow. Other animals can change their camouflage at will based on where they are. For example, marine creatures such as flatfish and stonefish can alter their coloration to blend in with surrounding sand and rock formations.

This type of camouflage, known as background matching, allows them to lie on the bottom of the seabed without being spotted. It is a highly useful adaptation. Some other animals have a type of seasonal camouflage. This includes the snowshoe hare, whose fur turns white in winter to match the surrounding snow.

During summer, the animal's fur turns brown to match the surrounding foliage. Disruptive coloration includes spots, stripes, and other patterns that break up the outline of an animal's shape and sometimes conceal particular body parts. The stripes of a zebra's coat , for example, create a disruptive pattern that is confusing to flies, whose compound eyes have trouble processing the pattern.