Camouflage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The peacock flounder can change its pattern and colours to match its environment.
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see (crypsis), or by disguising them as something else (mimesis). Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf- mimic katydid's wings.[1] A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate.
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The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter- illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of actively changing their skin pattern and colours, whether for camouflage or for signalling. Military camouflage was spurred by the increasing range and accuracy of firearms in the 1. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill. In the 2. 0th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the First World War.
On land, artists such as Andr. Г© Mare designed camouflage schemes and observation posts disguised as trees. At sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the target's speed, range, and heading. During and after the Second World War, a variety of camouflage schemes were used for aircraft and for ground vehicles in different theatres of war. The use of radar since the mid- 2.
- Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) VERY DANGEROUS! Adults are thick and heavy bodied snakes which rarely exceed 1 m in maximum head-body length in this region.
- Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising.
Non- military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive and helping hunters to approach wary game animals. Patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature.
History[edit]In zoology[edit]. Octopuses like this Octopus cyanea can change colour (and shape) for camouflage. In ancient Greece, Aristotle (3.
What is Optical Camouflage? Optical camouflage is a kind of active camouflage. This idea is very simple.If you project background image onto the masked object, you. Active camouflage or adaptive camouflage is camouflage that adapts, often rapidly, to the surroundings of an object such as an animal or military vehicle.
BC – 3. 22 BC) commented on the colour- changing abilities, both for camouflage and for signalling, of cephalopods including the octopus, in his Historia animalium: [2]The octopus .. Camouflage has been a topic of interest and research in zoology for well over a century. According to Charles Darwin's 1.
Camouflage for patients with vitiligo Feroze Kaliyadan 1, Ambika Kumar 2 1 Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia 2.
In his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote: [4]When we see leaf- eating insects green, and bark- feeders mottled- grey; the alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red- grouse the colour of heather, and the black- grouse that of peaty earth, we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger. Grouse, if not destroyed at some period of their lives, would increase in countless numbers; they are known to suffer largely from birds of prey; and hawks are guided by eyesight to their prey, so much so, that on parts of the Continent persons are warned not to keep white pigeons, as being the most liable to destruction. Hence I can see no reason to doubt that natural selection might be most effective in giving the proper colour to each kind of grouse, and in keeping that colour, when once acquired, true and constant. The English zoologist Edward Bagnall Poulton studied animal coloration, especially camouflage. In his 1. 89. 0 book The Colours of Animals, he classified different types such as "special protective resemblance" (where an animal looks like another object), or "general aggressive resemblance" (where a predator blends in with the background, enabling it to approach prey).
His experiments showed that swallowtailed moth pupae were camouflaged to match the backgrounds on which they were reared as larvae.[5][a] Poulton's "general protective resemblance"[7] was at that time considered to be the main method of camouflage, as when Frank Evers Beddard wrote in 1. Among vertebrates numerous species of parrots, iguanas, tree- frogs, and the green tree- snake are examples".[8] Beddard did however briefly mention other methods, including the "alluring coloration" of the flower mantis and the possibility of a different mechanism in the orange tip butterfly.
He wrote that "the scattered green spots upon the under surface of the wings might have been intended for a rough sketch of the small flowerets of the plant [an umbellifer], so close is their mutual resemblance."[9][b] He also explained the coloration of sea fish such as the mackerel: "Among pelagic fish it is common to find the upper surface dark- coloured and the lower surface white, so that the animal is inconspicuous when seen either from above or below."[1. The artist Abbott Handerson Thayer formulated what is sometimes called Thayer's Law, the principle of countershading.[1. However, he overstated the case in the 1. Concealing- Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, arguing that "All patterns and colors whatsoever of all animals that ever preyed or are preyed on are under certain normal circumstances obliterative" (that is, cryptic camouflage), and that "Not one 'mimicry' mark, not one 'warning color'.. nor any 'sexually selected' color, exists anywhere in the world where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable device for the concealment of its wearer",[1. Peacock in the Woods (1. Thayer was roundly mocked for these views by critics including Teddy Roosevelt.[1.
The English zoologist Hugh Cott's 1. Adaptive Coloration in Animals corrected Thayer's errors, sometimes sharply: "Thus we find Thayer straining the theory to a fantastic extreme in an endeavour to make it cover almost every type of coloration in the animal kingdom."[1.
Cott built on Thayer's discoveries, developing a comprehensive view of camouflage based on "maximum disruptive contrast", countershading and hundreds of examples. The book explained how disruptive camouflage worked, using streaks of boldly contrasting colour, paradoxically making objects less visible by breaking up their outlines.[1. While Cott was more systematic and balanced in his view than Thayer, and did include some experimental evidence on the effectiveness of camouflage,[1. Thayer's, mainly a natural history narrative which illustrated theories with examples.[1.
Camouflage is a soft- tissue feature that is rarely preserved in the fossil record, but rare fossilised skin samples from the Cretaceous period show that some marine reptiles were countershaded. The skins, pigmented with dark- coloured eumelanin, reveal that both leatherback turtles and mosasaurs had dark backs and light bellies.[2.
Military[edit]Before 1. Ship camouflage was occasionally used in ancient times. Philostratus (c. 1. AD) wrote in his Imagines that Mediterranean pirate ships could be painted blue- gray for concealment.[2. Vegetius (c. 3. 60–4. AD) says that "Venetian blue" (sea green) was used in the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar sent his speculatoria navigia (reconnaissance boats) to gather intelligence along the coast of Britain. The ships were painted entirely in bluish- green wax, with sails, ropes and crew the same colour.[2.
There is little evidence of military use of camouflage on land before 1. Peru's Mochica culture from before 5. AD, hunting birds with blowpipes which are fitted with a kind of shield near the mouth, perhaps to conceal the hunters' hands and faces.[2. Another early source is a 1. French manuscript, The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus, showing a horse pulling a cart which contains a hunter armed with a crossbow under a cover of branches, perhaps serving as a hide for shooting game.[2. Jamaican Maroons are said to have used plant materials as camouflage in the First Maroon War (c. The development of military camouflage was driven by the increasing range and accuracy of infantry firearms in the 1.
In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with weapons such as the Baker rifle made personal concealment in battle essential. For example, two Napoleonic War skirmishing units of the British Army, the 9. Rifle Regiment and the 6.
Rifle Regiment, were the first to adopt camouflage in the form of a rifle green jacket, while the Line regiments continued to wear scarlet tunics.[2. A contemporary study in 1. English artist and soldier Charles Hamilton Smith provided evidence that grey uniforms were less visible than green ones at a range of 1. In the American Civil War, rifle units such as the 1st United States Sharp Shooters (in the Federal army) similarly wore green jackets while other units wore more conspicuous colours.[2. The first British Army unit to adopt khaki uniforms was the Corps of Guides at Peshawar, when Sir Harry Lumsden and his second in command, William Hodson introduced a "drab" uniform in 1. Hodson wrote that it would be more appropriate for the hot climate, and help make his troops "invisible in a land of dust".[3. Later they improvised by dyeing cloth locally.
Other regiments in India soon adopted the khaki uniform, and by 1. Europe; [3. 1] by the Second Boer War six years later it was used throughout the British Army.[3. First World War[edit]In the First World War, the French army formed a camouflage corps, led by Lucien- Victor Guirand de Sc. Г©vola,[3. 3][3. 4] employing artists known as camoufleurs to create schemes such as tree observation posts and covers for guns. Other armies soon followed them.[3. The term camouflage probably comes from camoufler, a Parisian slang term meaning to disguise, and may have been influenced by camouflet, a French term meaning smoke blown in someone's face.[3.