Camouflage and its Examples – Imaluop

Hi, we are going to discuss a special type of behavioral adaptation in animals to protect themselves against enemies and prey, camouflage and its examples will give you an general overview how animals in nature show different types of behavioural adaptation. 

What is Camouflage: 

Animals show different types of tactics to survive in nature to keep themselves safe against the enemy animals and they also need to hide in nature to be unnoticed to their prey so that they can easily catch their prey.

Camouflage is one of the adaptations where an animal tries to mix their body with the natural background to remain unnoticed for both their enemies and prey which increases their probability of survival successfully.  

Different Types of Camouflage: 

Background Matching: 

In this case the animal have a colour which are almost similar to the surrounding they live so they can mix with the background and remain in undetected, some animals have special structure which almost similar to the nature matters like twig, leaves so that the predators and prey animals do not able to separate them from the nature.  

Disruptive Colouration: 

In this case the animals do not try to hide them in natural background instead they try to represent them in dangerous form but actually they are not dangerous, they have some special coloration which threaten other animals and give a warning sensation so that the enemy animals try to avoid the animals having disruptive colouration. 

Examples of Camouflage in Animals:  

• Caterpillar larva of common sulphur butterfly show a green colouration which makes them exactly mix with the green background of alfalfa leaves and other predators animals do not recognise them separately from the green background of leaves so the caterpillar can feed on those leaves without eating by predators animals. 
• Industrial melanism give the plant bark a dark black colouration and in the dark background of the plant bark the black colour moth easily hide themselves against predators birds because the birds do not easily find the black moth resting on the black plant bark but the peppered most when rest on the plant they easily detected by the predators birds and eaten by the birds. 
• In land snails a specific pattern of color is observed which makes them invisible on the ground where they live so the predators animals do not easily see them and due to this special colouration the land snail most of the time is able to escape from their enemy. 
• Viceroy butterflies have a special colouration which almost looks like bird droppings so when birds see them do not imagine that this is actually a butterfly and by this mechanism the viceroy butterfly can confuse the predators birds and easily.  
• In cabbage field some species of butterfly live and feed on cabbage leaves and their larva are green in colour which make them blend in the green leaves of cabbage so the predators animals do not identify them easily more on the cabbage produce some chemicals which generally the herbivores do not prefer but the cabbage butterfly easily break down the compound and feed on cabbage leaves. 
• In deer and squirrels their special body hair colouration makes them undetected in their surroundings in forests so other predators animals do not find them easily and some other mammals in forests also show some colouration which confuse other predators animals because their special coloured hair make them invisible.  
• Some marine animals show special colouration which exactly resembles the ocean floor and when they rest on the ocean floor most of the time they remain unnoticed to their prey and when the prey come close to them much enough to be caught they catch the prey easily and take them as food. 

Read More: Adaptation types and Examples