CAMOUFLAGE

By Cookie Davis

WHAT IS CAMOUFLAGE?

Camouflage is the ability to hide in plain sight by blending in or disguising yourself as something else. You've probably heard of camouflage clothing. It is used by the military so soldiers can't be seen by the enemy and by hunters so they can't be seen by the animals they're hunting.

The true masters of camouflage, however, are animals. Animals have amazing ways of camouflaging themselves.

Wikimedia Commons        

WHY DO ANIMALS HAVE CAMOUFLAGE?

Camouflage is an animal's ability to hide itself from predators and prey. Animals use camouflage to hide from predators that want to eat them or to hide from prey they want to eat. Most animals camouflage themselves through colorization—the color of their skin, fur, feathers, or scales matches their environment, mimics a leaf, stick, or some other thing common in their surroundings, or their color pattern allows them to blend in with other animals in their species to make it difficult for predators to tell them apart.

TYPES OF CAMOUFLAGE

There are many different types of camouflage, but the main type is called crypsis. It is when an animal's coloring allows it to blend in without being seen. Other types of camouflage include patterns that make an animal's movement difficult to detect or the ability of an animal to mask its smell.

Some animals, like the toad below, try to match their background to avoid being seen. Some animals, like the ptarmigan, even change color entirely with the seasons to blend in to the changes in their environment.

Pixabay

Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, License CC-BY-SA 4.0

Wikimedia Commons

This is the rock ptarmigan in summer. Its feathers are dark and mottled (not all the same color) so it blends in with the rocks and dirt in its surroundings.

This is the rock ptarmigan in winter. Its feathers become almost all white to blend in with the snow. Other animals who live where it snows in the winter change their color, too, such as the Arctic fox and the Siberian hamster.

Pixabay

The ghost mantis has a body that looks like a brown leaf. It is an example of an animal that mimics, or copies, something from its environment to avoid being seen.

TRY THIS EXPERIMENT

Want to see how camouflage works? Try this experiment. Here's what you'll need:

• a newspaper or a few pieces of paper that are heavily printed (have no photos or other graphics and are printed on the entire page)
• a sheet of brightly colored paper
• scissors
• a stopwatch or clock with a second hand
  

1. You'll need one piece of paper or sheet of newspaper for a mat, so set that aside first.
2. Cut the rest of your printed paper and your brightly colored paper into 1-inch squares (about 20 of each).
   

3. Mix the the paper squares together and spread them out over the mat of paper.

4. Find a friend and ask him or her to pick up as many pieces of paper as they can in 10 seconds. The only rule is that he or she must only pick up one piece of paper at a time.

5. Once they've finished, count the number of brightly colored squares and the number of printed squares.

If your friend is like most people, he or she will have many more colored squares of paper. Why? Because they are easier to see. This is how camouflage works, too. If an animal blends into its background, it is less likely to be attacked by a predator.

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Butterfield, Moira. "Camouflage." 1000 Facts about Wild Animals. New York: Scholastic, 1992. 34-35. Print.
"Camouflage." Camouflage. University of Delaware, n.d. Web. 05 Aug. 2016. http://tinyurl.com/z8kttml
"Camouflage." National Geographic Society. National Geographic Society, 25 Aug. 2011. Web. 02 Aug. 2016.
Harris, Tom. "How Animal Camouflage Works." HowStuffWorks.com. InfoSpace LLC, 18 May 2001. Web. 05 Aug. 2016. <http://tinyurl.com/ydeyyfc>.

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 This lesson was created for my hyperdoc book project for the book Hatchet by. Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for additional hyperdoc book projects for other novels.