What is camouflage

A.� It's the ability to blend into�natural surroundings, employed by many animals to protect them from predators.

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Q.� Why don't predators see through camouflage

A.� Because of the way they perceive the world. Animals, and humans, tend to see patterns, rather than a whirling blur of colours and shapes. Different objects often look similar to each other and are perceived as a whole if they have a common pattern.

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A good example of this is the zebra. This type of camouflage, called disruptive coloration, creates an optical illusion for the lion, the zebra's main predator. When the lion hunts in the dim light of dawn or dusk, shadows on white stripes make a zebra very hard to spot. And if a lion chases a zebra, the animal appears to merge with all the other zebras, making it appear a huge blurry mass, rather than a single easy snack.

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Q.� Can you tell an animal's habitat from its form of camouflage

A. Generally, yes. Forest and woodland animals tend to be darker, often with some spots or stripes to imitate the pattern light makes through trees. In contrast, desert animals tend to be tan coloured to blend with sandy soils.

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You can also tell animals that evolved in different habitats from their present ones using camouflage. Some adult animals have different markings from their newborns because the adults develop protective coloration to match their surroundings, but the young are still born with patterns for surviving in habitats from which they evolved. Lion cubs start out with spotted and striped patterns, but become monochrome coloured when they mature.

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Q.� Can an animals' camouflage change through its lifetime

A.� Yes, as well as in the example discussed above, many species change with the seasons to keep up with the different appearance of their surroundings. The ermine weasel is brown in the summer and snowy white in the winter, keeping it camouflaged all year.

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Q. How did camouflage evolve

A.� The same way as all other adaptations for survival, as first described by Darwin. Very basically animals with characteristics that helped them survive, in our case a coat that helped them 'disappear' into the background, were more likely to reproduce and so pass on their genes, including those genes that determine their appearance, onto their offspring, and so on.

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If you have questions about anything in the animal kingdom, click here to ask.

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by Lisa Cardy