Camouflage in Nature - Key to Survival and Evolution

Camouflage in Nature

- Key to Survival and Evolution

  

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Retired Professor in Natural Science

UST, DLSU-D and SPU-QC

There are four basic types of camouflage:

• concealing coloration,
• disruptive coloration,
• disguise, and
• mimicry.

\

These moths mimic the color and pattern of their footholds, 

sleeping during the day in perfect camouflage against predators.

At night they are active searching around for food and mates,    

and shortly die after.  They are ephemeral for whatever design,

and purpose - we have yet to discover and fully understand.

 Flying lizard (Draco rizali*), named after Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal.

Other species of tree lizards are camouflaged on different tree trunks. 

Camouflage is in changing colors and patterns - the chameleon;

     in imitating some part of its host - the walking stick;

the bagworm like protruding thorn, or pagoda covering its larva; 

     monarch butterfly, and viceroy butterfly**, its mimic.  

*Rizal identified it as a new species of lizard which he tentatively named, Draco dapitani. Rizal sent specimens to Europe, to the German zoologist Benno Wandolleck. In 1900 Wandolleck, thinking Rizal's specimens represented a new species, described it and named it Draco rizali, thereby creating another synonym.

**Viceroys (Limenitis archippus) are Monarch mimics, even though they're not very closely related. ... By looking almost the same and both being toxic partners, the two species (in this case the Monarch and the Viceroy) both benefit from each other.

Periodical Cicada***

                             Where is the cicada?  How many are they? Look again.  

There are several species of cicadas in the Philippines.  In Luzon alone there are 33 reported species, which include Chremistica tagalica.  A "laughing cicada", Psithyristria ridibunda sp. nov., was also recently discovered on Mt Banahaw in Lucban, Quezon. There is no evidence of the unique 17-year old cicada among the local species. The oldest cicada fossil dates 47 million years, and shows the key features of  cicadas today. The fossil is identified as Eoplatypleura messelensis, discovered in Germany's Messel Pit, a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Reference Internet)

Sargassum Fish

 

A second look, a third perhaps,

only then that we become aware

what the eye can't - smell, touch,

listen, look longer, stare. ~

The sargassum fish spends its entire life associated with floating Sargassum seaweeds. Its buoyant prowess lies in having small gas-filled bladders called pneumatocysts which provide the fish with the ability to remain suspended close to the  surface where vital elements light and oxygen are abundant - so with its unwary preys, the Sargassum fish being a voracious predator - and cannibal!  ~