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Camouflage

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Background Info
Fast Facts
For Further Exploration

Background Info

In a game of hide-and-seek these tricksters would never be found! Camouflaged creatures use their coloring, surrounding environment, and even what they eat to change the way they look, allowing them to blend in to the world around them.

Fast Facts

- The walking leaf (Phylliidae) is native to southern Asia and Australia. The first scientific observation of them may have been made by a naturalist accompanying Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. In southern Asia "are also found certain trees, the leaves of which, when they fall, are animated, and walk," wrote Antonio Pigafetta.
- How do you tell the difference between the harmless scarlet king snake and the toxic coral snake? Remember this rhyme:
  
  “Red-on-yellow kills a fellow, Red-on-black won’t hurt Jack.”
- Many nudibranchs have aposematic coloration. This means they have dazzling, bright, and often patterned coloration. Aposematism warns potential predators that the nudibranchs are toxic.
- Decorator crabs attach their "decorations" (such as seaweeds, corals, and sea anemones) to their shells using a special adhesive. The substance is gelatinous when the crab attaches the material to its shell, but quickly hardens—just like glue.
- There are four subspecies of arctic fox: Bering Islands arctic fox, Greenland arctic fox, Iceland arctic fox, and Pribilof Islands arctic fox. All subspecies change their coats from translucent-white (winter) to tawny brown (summer).