Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Animal camouflage
- 2 Crypsis through background matching
- 3 The concealment of body parts through coincident disruptive coloration
- 4 The history, theory and evidence for a cryptic function of countershading
- 5 Camouflage-breaking mathematical operators and countershading
- 6 Nature's artistry
- 7 Camouflage behaviour and body orientation on backgrounds containing directional patterns
- 8 Camouflage and visual perception
- 9 Rapid adaptive camouflage in cephalopods
- 10 What can camouflage tell us about non-human visual perception? A case study of multiple cue use in cuttlefish (Sepia spp.)
- 11 Camouflage in marine fish
- 12 Camouflage in decorator crabs
- 13 Camouflage in colour-changing animals
- 14 The multiple disguises of spiders
- 15 Effects of animal camouflage on the evolution of live backgrounds
- 16 The functions of black-and-white coloration in mammals
- 17 Evidence for camouflage involving senses other than vision
- Index
- Plate section
- References
6 - Nature's artistry
Abbott H. Thayer's assertions about camouflage in art, war and nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Animal camouflage
- 2 Crypsis through background matching
- 3 The concealment of body parts through coincident disruptive coloration
- 4 The history, theory and evidence for a cryptic function of countershading
- 5 Camouflage-breaking mathematical operators and countershading
- 6 Nature's artistry
- 7 Camouflage behaviour and body orientation on backgrounds containing directional patterns
- 8 Camouflage and visual perception
- 9 Rapid adaptive camouflage in cephalopods
- 10 What can camouflage tell us about non-human visual perception? A case study of multiple cue use in cuttlefish (Sepia spp.)
- 11 Camouflage in marine fish
- 12 Camouflage in decorator crabs
- 13 Camouflage in colour-changing animals
- 14 The multiple disguises of spiders
- 15 Effects of animal camouflage on the evolution of live backgrounds
- 16 The functions of black-and-white coloration in mammals
- 17 Evidence for camouflage involving senses other than vision
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Among my most valued possessions are four letters from Sir Alister Hardy, the eminent British marine biologist, the first of which was written in 1976, the last one five years later. As a young university professor, I was interested in camouflage, and having read Hardy's remarkable book, The Living Stream (Hardy 1965), I wrote to him, asking about his experiences as a military camouflage officer.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Animal CamouflageMechanisms and Function, pp. 87 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011