Crab Spider – Can change colour to match the flower it is living on. Images by Andy Karran
HIDING IN PL AIN S IGHT
THE ART OF CAMOUFLAGE It’s a dangerous place out there, so our wildlife has had to develop many fantastic adaptations to survive. Some animals use great speed, others the cover of darkness, safety in numbers is another tactic and for others retreating into refuges can all make their chances of survival greater. By Gwent Wildlife Trust’s Senior Conservation Ecologist Andy Karran
However, not all animals can be quick and there is always likely to be a predator quicker; and if they want to complete their lifecycles and find food they can’t hide all day.
If you can go about your business undetected then you will be successful and this is why camouflage has evolved so many times. Natural Selection has fine-tuned this over many generations to produce incredible adaptations. Camouflage is not only for an animal’s protection however, it can be important to an ambush predator.
There is a bit more to camouflage than being the same colour as your surroundings, as we will find out:
• CONCEALING COLOURATION
Many animals adopt this to some degree or other. Many caterpillars that eat leaves are green to make them harder for foraging birds to see. Also many female birds, (i.e. ducks), are more dowdy than the gaudy males to make them far less obvious when sat on the nest. The Bittern is perfectly plumaged for its secretive life in a reedbed.
This all helps them to avoid predation. For species such as Plaice, the colouration has a dual purpose, serving both as protection against predation and also allowing them to ambush smaller prey. You are probably aware of the Chameleon’s amazing ability to change colour to match its surroundings, whilst not as spectacular, the Crab Spiders in our gardens are able to change their colour to match the flowers they sit on to ambush unfortunate insects, this likely affords them some protection from predation also.
Buff-tip Moth - Disguised as a broken birch twig. © Andy Karran 81
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GWENT WI LDL I F E TRUST THE AR T OF CAMOUF LAGE
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