Camouflage



Camouflage

Introduction

The camouflage refers to any means or device tending to make them less visible or give a misleading appearance of an object or a living being. The word camouflage was created in 1914 in the French military jargon from an Italian verb camuffare having the same meaning. The camouflage is a method of concealment. It allows an organization or a visible object to remain unnoticed, blending with its environment. Examples include stripes of a tiger, the lattice of a soldier and a modern butterfly with the appearance of a leaf. The theory of camouflage covers the various strategies that are used to achieve this effect. The camouflage coloring is the most common form of camouflage, which is to some extent present in all animals. The easiest way for an animal is to be a similar color to its environment. For example, the deer, the squirrels, or moles have tones of their environment (to match trees or earth), and the combination of blue and white of the belly skin of sharks makes it difficult to detect both the top and bottom, by a cons-illumination. More complex patterns can be seen in animals such as lizards, the butterflies and frogs, and many others. Military camouflage is also a common thing in military for a long time.

Discussion

Animal Camouflage

The type of camouflage a species will develop depends on several factors:

The environment in which he lives. This is usually the dominant factor.

The physiology and behavior of the animal. Animals fur need camouflage different from those with feathers or scales. Likewise, animals that live in groups use different camouflage techniques to those who are lonely (Barbosa, 2008).

If the animal is a potential prey, behavior or characteristics of its predator can influence how the camouflage develops. For example, if the predator has a vision achromatic, then the animal will not need to match the color of its surroundings.

The animals produce color in two ways:

Biochromes: pigments that absorb natural microscopic certain wavelengths of light and reflect others, creating a visible color that is targeted for its main predator.

Microscopic physical structures, which act like prisms to reflect and scatter light to produce a color that is different from the skin, such as fur translucent the polar bear, which actually has black skin (Barbosa, 2008)

Camouflage color may also change. This may be due to a simple change of seasons, or it can be a response to fast environmental change. For example, the Arctic fox has a white coat in winter and brown in summer. The mammals and birds require a new fur coat and a new set of feathers respectively, but some animals, such as cuttlefish, have pigment cells, called chromatophores, that they can control. Other animals such as certain species of fish or nudibranchs can change the color of their skin by changing their diet. However, the best-known creature that changes color, the chameleon , do not usually does it for the purpose of camouflage, but to express her mood or thermoregulation (Stevens, Cuthill & Walker, ...