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Camouflage
Camouflage is ‘the natural colouring or form of an animal which enables it to blend in with its surroundings’. Just as a polar bear’s white coat enables it to blend in with the snowy tundra that is its home, or a leaf insect mimics the foliage on a tree, various animals use camouflage to become almost invisible.
Animals that are hunted by predators use special colouring and camouflage to make them as inconspicuous as possible, while those that are out to ambush their prey use a variety of disguises and tactics to ensnare unsuspecting victims.
Earth-Touch camera crews have captured footage of camouflage in action, both on the land and in the ocean, as used by the hunter and the hunted.
strange discovery
In the forests of Thailand, Darryl Sweetland came across the strangest creature he had ever seen. As he recalls:
Whenever I see bird droppings on a leaf, I inspect them closely. You might consider this a rather bizarre pastime, but I have learnt that in nature things are often not what they seem, and on several occasions I have missed the chance of photographing moths that resembled bird droppings by not looking at them carefully enough. I saw a particularly large ‘dropping’ which appeared to have a fly feeding on it. On closer inspection this turned out to be an extraordinary bird-dropping spider, and the fly, far from being the diner, was actually the dinner. The spider’s body pattern not only mimicked the darker part of a bird dropping wonderfully well, but it also held its white legs out sideways and together to mimic the white part that droppings often contain.
See this amazing spider in Green cat snake escapes floodwaters.
masters of disguise
A leopard lies flat on the ground in the shadow of a tree, using his tawny and black colouring to blend into the grass and shadows while he watches a family of kudu browsing just metres in front of him, totally unaware of his presence. See how a leopard’s camouflage enables it to approach potential prey unobserved in the clip Leopard stalks kudu trio.
One of nature's particularly interesting little creatures, which has its own ‘travelling house’, is the bagworm. Newly hatched larvae of this species use vegetable debris, thorns or sticks to construct silk-lined portable cases in which they live out their life cycle. The sticks adhere to a substance excreted by the larvae, serving both as a protective case and as camouflage in the local environment. See if you can spot the bagworm in the clip Tortoise shows off its beautiful markings.
Stonefish are regarded as one of the most dangerous fish, not for their size or bite, but because of their effective camouflage and the toxin contained in their dorsal spines. A stonefish’s sting can kill an adult person within a few hours, if not attended to quickly. See how these fat fish take on the appearance of their surroundings in order to blend in, in the clip Wreck harbours deadly stonefish.
On the seabed, large round ribbontail rays(Taeniura melanospilos) and a few marbled electric rays (Torpedo sinuspersici) lie immobile and almost unnoticeable, partially covered by sand as they wait for unsuspecting crustaceans and small fish to pass by. Rays use their ‘wings’ to flick sand over their bodies, so they become almost invisible on the sea floor. This is illustrated well in the clip Rays around the reef.
In the clip Octopus hunts with skill, speed and savvy, an octopus works a small area of rocks that lie under a layer of foamy seawater against the shoreline. It darts from rock to rock on its eight legs, settling upon any likely-looking rock and embracing it while feeling in all the crevices with its delicate tentacles. This hunt involves periodic colour changes that appear as flashes of white against its usual mottled brown appearance. Watch an octopus hunting at night and marvel at its ability to flush with a change of colour to fool both predator and prey.
The real character of shallow marine rock pools is the short-spined urchin, which uses discarded shells and rubble to disguise its fairly obvious rotund, spiky form. While most short-spined urchins use old razor clam shells or little pebbles, some adorn themselves with flamboyant shreds of purple or pink seaweed, or pieces of dead soft coral. View these urchins with dress sense in Spiky sea urchins line rock pools.
On a rock in the hot, dry Karoo sits a girdled lizard, very effectively camouflaged, its colouring adapted to match that of the surrounding rock as it darts in and out of crevices in search of small insects. See the girdled lizard in action in Leaping lizards in Namaqualand.
An early morning tour of a reef turns out to be an insight into the Scorpaenidae family – bizarre, bottom-dwelling fish like the raggy scorpionfish which use their extreme camouflage to hide from and predate upon other creatures. They have pronounced dorsal spines, most of which are highly toxic. See how the scraggly appearance of the scorpionfish belies its lethal arsenal in Weird and wonderful predators.
Imitating the movement of plants is part of the Natal green snake’s camouflage. It gets very hot along the coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during the rainy summer months. The coastal forest grows dense, making snakes even harder to see than usual, but it was here that our crew came across a Natal green snake (Philothamnus ornatus) on the outer edge of the forest. These reptiles prey on chameleons, geckos, frogs, birds and insects, using a swaying movement to imitate plants moving in the wind. See for yourself how this snake uses camouflage in Snake hunts in coastal forest.