Animal Camourflage; Hunt or be Hunted

The military uniform is regarded as a camourflage and it is trully one depending on where the soldiers are hiding so as to be able to defeat their enemies. Some living creatures are at their best when it comes to camourflage because they need them to continue surviving.

When we think of camourflage, one of the first things that comes to mind is blending with the background just like a lot of animals do but camourflage is weigh beyond that as it can come in different forms such as resembeling something else like the catapilar that camourflages to look like bird droppings, Antelopes camourflaging to look 2D, and it can also be about disappearing like in the case of insects that have the same colors with the leaves in their environment.

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Either the animal is disapearing or looking like a shapeshifter, they all do the job of surviving where the predator wants to hunt and the prey don't want to get eaten. In other for survival to continue with camourflage, Natural selection always does a good job. An example of Natural selection taking effect is see in Tawny Owls that lives in Southern Finland. The Owls are of two types with the gray which usually blend in the woods with winter, and the brown which blends in the wood when every where is brown.

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Before now, the owls living in Finland were majorly gray since winter snow looked like it would never end and the birds are able to hunt thanks to camourflage but in recent times, the winter is becoming milder which means that there is more brown woods with less snow falls. With this, preys are able to see the gray Owls easily and therefore hide from them while the browns are able to hide properly using their camourflage, and so they are aboe to live. With natural selection in place, the population of the gray owl is reducing while that of the brown owls are increasing.

When it comes to predator and prey with camourflage, it is that the camourflage of the animal is being shaped by what another animal sees. Camourflage happens in the brain of the animal to be hidden from. Visual animals like humans we see edges and shadings, so unless we are interested in looking for something, our brains ignores the details it doesn't need. With this, animals that are able to hide their edges and shadows become invisible to the brain in what is known as disruptive coloration.

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Have you noticed that animals that have the sun shining on their back usually have a lighter underside to even out the shadow cast by their body, and this same thing applies to animals that like moving upside down like caterpillars and Sloths have their backs lighter and their bellies darker so as to even out their shadow cast from their bellies.

Although we are able to fall a fool for these camourflages, the majority of animals display these camourflages for other animals and not us humans. This is because the camourflage is to fool animals that see in different ways than we see as humans. A very good example is seen in Orange tigers walking among green leaves and when we see them we wonder why they stay close to the leaves but while we see the 3D vision because of our sight, their prey do not see the oranges. Tiger's preys like the deer have only two types of color sensitive cells making it difficult for them to see colors like Orange and would see them as green.

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Animals also use mimicry as a way of camourflage in nature, such animals are the Viceroy butterfly which have evolved by designed to look like Monarch butterfly which is a toxic butterfly. Since predators have learned to avoid monarch butterfly and anything that looks like them, they have also learned to avoid viceroy. Animals are able to use mimicry on both levels either as preys or predators.

While the Viceroy that we see in our yards exhibit mimicry against their predators, animals like the Ghost mantis display mimicry looking like a dead leaf so does the Orchid mantis display mimicry looking like a flower so as to hunt. Either Miicry, complete disapearing, disruptive coloration, animals are only in the business of eating preys and not being eaten by predators.

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