Crypsis is an evolutionary technique used by animals to hide from predators or sneak up on prey. It can be an effective strategy, practiced by most major animal phyla. Some animals use their surroundings for camouflage, while others change color seasonally. Chameleons change color to express mood, not to match their surroundings.
Crypsis is an evolutionary technique, employed by various animals, to hide from other animals. This can be used by prey to avoid predators, such as the Arctic snow hare, or by predators to sneak up on prey, such as the leaf-patterned Gaboon pit viper. Some animals use crypts so effectively that you can’t see them even if you look straight at them, such as some octopuses, which can change color in a second, and leaf bugs, whose bodies look like leaves even under a magnifying glass. Contrary to common belief, chameleons, among the most famous cryptic animals, don’t usually change their skin color to match their surroundings, but rather to express mood.
Crypsis can be an effective evolutionary strategy. Even a species that is eaten only 10% fewer times may eventually outpace the reproduction rate of a competitor that lacks these capabilities. In this way, the cryptis can evolve incrementally. Crypsis is practiced by most major animal phyla, including cephalopods such as cuttlefish, geckos and other lizards, mammals such as pumas and ibex, frogs and assorted turtles, birds, and many others. The alternative to crypsi is aposematism, where an animal warns others of its presence with striking coloration or some other warning signal.
Sometimes cryptic animals use their surroundings for camouflage, such as a sniper using nearby leaves to build a hideout. Nudibranchs, small marine molluscs, consume fragments of coral, the pigments of which are channeled onto their skin. This means that a nudibranch can move between colonies of differently colored corals and acquire the appropriate coloration before being noticed by a predator. Similarly, flukes, a kind of parasite, change color to match their host.
Many animals change color seasonally, as seasonal changes change the appearance of the environment more. The standard example is the arctic fox, which is dirty brown in summer and white in winter. Some birds also have a tendency to grow feathers of colors that help them blend in better depending on the season.
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