Do you remember that camouflage also has a second name? Aka cryptic coloration. It’s a protective layer of invisibility that enables animals to temporarily flash out of nature’s constant supervision. If people could do the same, we’d probably hear a lot more social media reports about missing people! Luckily, we haven’t found a technology yet that would grant us the same bewitching power as some of the creatures in the natural world. Just in case you are too preoccupied over the comparison of camouflaging animals with ninjas who expertly evade predators and leave onlookers scratching their heads wondering about their location and accidentally got sidetracked enough to forget the three factors impacting the adeptness of different species’ camouflages, they are:
- Physical characteristics which are divided into further subcategories of furs/hairs, scales, and feathers. Among them, scaled surfaces claimed triumph in speed and convenience of changing color to match their background hues.
- Predator behavior. We recognize that color changing is not the main factor in the definition of camouflage, there are countless other ways camouflage could appear and this all depends on what the organism needs to do to avoid being a dinner platter to fruitfully stalk prey, and to peacefully take a nap in the middle of a seemingly empty clearing, etc. In the previous example, if a lion’s field of colour perception is mostly restricted to black and white, there’s no need for many of its prey to blend in with the environment anyway. So in this article, we can see the other self-protective process the prey of lions (like zebras) have adopted to use that weakness for their own profit in survivability.
- Habitat and Environment. Animals have the highest chance of longevity if they choose the right place to dwell based on how they are made. It isn’t because a shark feels like terrorizing schools of clownfish in the sea that brought them to the atrocious name as notorious as hijackers, but its skin color matches the illumination changed due to the interaction of water with the sunlight. This gives sharks a better opportunity to camouflage against other ruthless sea hunters (including humans) as they aren’t the most intimidating in size apart from their serrated alignments of teeth.
Four Methods That Lead Animals To Hide-And-Seek Championships
1. Concealing coloration, also simply known as blending. It’s the classic illustration of a multicolored chameleon sizzling different pigments into its scale at a rainbow factory. Little known to most people is how these colour changes manage to happen. Are these species brewing secret concoctions in their cells, pulling off the ultimate optical illusion on the observer’s eyes, or keeping some other tricks up their sleeves? There are three prevalent explanations revealing the science behind these cryptic acts:
- Biochromes are microscopic. Natural pigment chemicals produced by certain species reflect certain wavelengths of light (wave colors that it exhibits), and absorb ones not visible on the surface. Specifically, biochromes are the layer of superficially deposited pigments on the top layer; deeper in the flesh, cells that bustled for secretion are called chromatophores. Fascinating species like cuttlefish and squids have these cells in the shape of a small balloon with a fluid containing each type of pigment in the receptacle. The blobs are surrounded by a circular band of muscle that can constrict and expand. When the fibers tense and close in, the cell pops and instantly releases pigment that floats to the surface layer of biochrome so the empty flask at the bottom is flattened out into a wide disc after the muscle relaxes, waiting to be refilled with colorants again.
- Depending on the type of animal, many skin structures display properties that can refract, reflect, and play with the absorption of light. For one scenario, polar bears are the iciest undercover agents. Beneath the fluffy winter coat, their black skin is invisible as their hair is semi-translucent like needles of prism that bend light so it bounces off, absorbing no light by refracting unfractured white light off their body. It’s an evolution survival attribute because the black integument soaks up more heat from the sun maintaining decent body temperature in the chilly setting while the exterior tint blends in the kingdom of ice and snow.
- Dietary alteration refers to the pigment of similar color being produced, directly corresponding to what food entered the body's metabolism, just like how eating too much beetroot turns the urine brilliant pink and sends people galloping to the hospital convinced that they have either suffered from a bleeding intestinal tract or they’ve been transformed into a human highlighter. Nudibranch (a rather fancy name for shell-less sea slugs) feeds on a variety of corals. If they consumed a gluttonous amount of sun coral, their droopy body likely appears yellow as if they were testing the edge of bursting their small digestive system. In fact, the reason the color permeates through is that their protective skin is so thin that the hollow food tracts actually show through once it is stuffed with gaudy contents.
2. Disruptive coloration. Terrified prey developed the innate reaction to mask any striking features about themselves that betrayed the tale they were a biotic existence in the world when they perceived death meandering in front of their face, especially taking heed to cover the eyes and the contours of the body no matter the size, from a neck-cracking giraffe among the tangles of the forest or a croaking toad crouched on a lily pad. Many whimsy patterns found on animals’ skin not only could be a sign of their poisonous, irritating nature, but also served to weaken visual systems organisms use to access something’s vitality, such as edge detection. This can take place in many forms, but some exemplifications are:
- Self-decoration. Like in the movies featuring fugitives on the run, they tumbled into the nearest washroom and began sticking fake mustaches on their face, swapping out articles of clothing from their suitcase, and potentially wreck their eyesight with a stolen glass or two. Animals will actively seek to decorate themselves with remnants littered in their environment when they sense hazards. A decorator crab, as its name suggested, would sheathe its back with rotting seaweeds, sponges, stones, and anything that fits in its rummaging claws, trying to achieve the effect of becoming a piece of the ocean floor.
- Mimesis or mimicry occurs when the creature strives to take the shape or appearance that wouldn’t arouse any interest in approaching predators, conventionally, assuming the form of an inedible item. This time, however, instead of arduously trying to borrow aid from natural ornaments, the species of concern looks like that decor without trying to do anything. A peppered moth caterpillar can imitate a twig effortlessly, a grasshopper can almost be converted into a piece of movable dried leaf, and a flower mantis becomes an orchid flower in the garden patch in a flick of its wings. It is like a shocking plot twist that the fugitive who committed the crime was the dominating sheriff in the station, and who would have doubted or suspected him if they were not witnesses? Identically, for certain species, once they are in the right spot, they become the knickknack without struggling in that fraction of a minute hoping to protect themselves; this supports why it is necessary and crucial for animals to adapt to the right habitat which most do by evolution unless they are displaced.
3. Motion dazzle is a visual distortion that degrades a predator’s ability to access the speed and direction of its
prey’s movement. It was a risky tactic reserved for the few, notably, the zebras. Because of their behavioral
and physical advantages combined, the irregular stripes covering them build a massive network of lines to
produce the wagon-wheel effect where a perceived motion appears to move at a slower speed than it is in
reality. Furthermore, it also generates a byproduct effect called the barber-pole effect (check out a rotating
barber-pole if you can see one where the name was credited to) which an observer considers a motion heading
in the opposite direction than its actual paths of travel. It is tearing a lion’s critical judgment into two— one part
desiring to rush to the left and the other part countered the opinion by wanting to go to the right. Those cheeky
zebras seized the debility of their color distinguishment to the maximum.
So we disclosed the recipe for many species’ survival success. It's not an exaggeration to say camouflage is
an intricate art and a master feat of evolution. From color-varying chameleons to perfectly patterned zebras,
the techniques for camouflage no matter what underlying mechanisms they employ are crucial to animals
navigating the wild world with caution and cunning. Rounding back to our analogy of ninjas who always
disappeared in the stealthiness of the night, they were also, unfortunately, neglected in terms of their talent
and power. Nonetheless, on a very encouraging note, we have to acknowledge that many organisms’
remarkable adaptations and capabilities are more than enough to promise their triumph over all the setbacks
and challenges nature imposes.
References:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/camouflage/
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animal-camouflage.htm#:~:text=By%20perceiving%20the%20
color%20of,to%20communicate%20with%20 each%20 other.
https://youtu.be/F-vRzYreZXY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/camouflage-animals-cryptic-coloration
