Camouflage - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

# Camouflage

### From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Protective camouflage used to disguise people, animals, or military targets For other uses, see Camouflage (disambiguation).
Countershaded Ibex are almost invisible in the Israeli desert.

Camouflage is the method that makes it very difficult to see an organism or object that normally could be seen very well. The method is to change how it looks so that it looks so much like its surrounding environment that it cannot be seen without special concentration. Examples include a tiger's stripes and the battledress of a modern soldier.

Camouflage is a form of deception. The word camouflage comes from the French word camoufler meaning "to disguise."[1][2]

## [edit] Natural camouflage

In nature, there is a strong evolutionary pressure for animals to blend into their environment or conceal their shape. For prey animals it is important not be seen by predators and for predators it is important to be able to look for prey without beeing seen. Natural camouflage is one method that animals use to come to this result. There are a number of methods of doing so. One is for the animal to blend in with its surroundings, while another is for the animal to disguise itself as something uninteresting or something dangerous.

Some animals also simulate natural movement, e.g., of a leaf in the wind. Other animals attach or attract natural materials to their body for concealment.

A few animals have a chromatic response, they change color in changing environments, either seasonally (ermine, snowshoe hare) or far more rapidly like the chameleon and the cephalopod family.

Some herd animals adopt a similar pattern to make it difficult to distinguish a single animal. Examples include stripes on zebras.

The use of different colors on upper and lower surfaces in graduating tones from a light belly to a darker back, is common in the sea and on land. [3]

An infant Cuttlefish blends into the surrounding sand substrate. | A Dead Leaf Mantis from Madagascar. | A flounder blends in with its environment. | The stripes of Plains Zebras blend together making it difficult to distinguish an individual animal.
A leaf insect | Sumatran Tiger

## [edit] References

- Harris, Tom. How Animal Camouflage Works. How Stuff Works. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
- How do a zebra's stripes act as camouflage?. How Stuff Works. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
- Roy R. Behrens - Art and Camouflage: An Annotated Bibliography
- Behrens, Roy R. (2002). FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage, Bobolink Books. ISBN 0-9713244-0-9.
- Everett L. Warner, “The Science of Marine Camouflage Design” in Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society 14 (5) 1919, pp. 215-219.
- Everett L. Warner, “Fooling the Iron Fish: The Inside Story of Marine Camouflage” in Everybody’s Magazine (November 1919), pp. 102-109.

## [edit] Notes

1. ↑ Harper, Douglas (2001). Online Etymology Dictionary – Camouflage (php). Etymonline.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
2. ↑ Camouflage. Dictionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
3. ↑ This is sometimes called Thayer's law, after Abbott H. Thayer who published a paper on the form in 1896.

## [edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Camouflage

- Roy R. Behrens, "The Thinking Eye: a Chronology of Camouflage" 2006
- "An informal study into camoflage"

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Category: Survival skills

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