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General Information Camouflage |
Among
the different species of butterflies and moths, different ways of camouflage can
be found. The simplest way is to copy the color of the background. Even
structures of tree trunks are imitated perfectly. Other butterflies have dark
and light stripes and patterns on their wings to get invisible in the lights and
shadows in a bush, for example.
Complex patterns make it difficult for predators to distinguish the outline of the butterfly from the environment. This is called "disruptive coloration".
Other inedible things are often imitated, too. Some caterpillars and pupae look like bird droppings or twigs. The Indian Leaf butterfly (Kallima) is an example for the copy of a dead leaf. The upper side of its wings is blue and orange, but when it sits down on a twig it gets nearly totally invisible. It closes its wings showing a dull brown color with fine brown lines like the veins of a leaf and lies aside. The form and coloring of the wings make it hard to recognize the "living brown leaf".
The camouflage coloration is always on the side of the wings that is visible when the animal rests. This means a butterfly’s one is on the bottom side of its wings, a moth’s one on the upper side.
The animals enforce the camouflage effect with their behavior: They normally sit down on backgrounds where the camouflage works best.
Additionally, many of them pretend they are dead and don’t move. Caterpillars partly even fall off their leaves.
