The Wilderness Masquerade- Siri Anugu
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/animal-camouflage-prey-predator-strategy
https://www.quora.com/What-is-camouflage-Why-is-it-important-to-animals
Although many animals use camouflage as a way of escaping predators, recent studies suggest that not all camouflage is made the same. An animal mainly uses camouflage to blend into its surroundings in order to make it harder for the predator to locate them. There are two types of camouflage mainly compared in this study, the study in question being more of a comparison of multiple past studies. One type of camouflage is background matching, where the animal matches the colors and patterns of its surroundings. An example is how baby deers have white spots on their backs to simulate the pattern of sunlight filtering through the trees. The other type is masquerading, where an animal pretends to be an item in its surroundings. This is like when a caterpillar pretends to be a branch or a leaf in order to avoid detection. Studies have shown that masquerading has made predators take 300% more time to find the target than average. Masquerading has been found to be one of the most effective ways to camouflage and further studies are being conducted to figure out what specifically about masquerading makes it so effective.
-Can the same technique be used by predators to hunt? How can that look due to a predator’s usually larger size?
-How can this knowledge help us understand the evolution of camouflage and its use?
-Can humans use this study to help improve a part of our lives? (Biomimicry?)
Comments
Post a Comment