CAMOUFLAGE
CAMOUFLAGE IN
ANIMALS
1
SEPTEMBER 7,2022
BIOLOGY INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT
Authored by M. Shree Nithee of 2
Ms Madhurima A Gupta
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank:
• My teacher for providing me with this extremely significant and interesting project topic to
research on and present a report on.
• To all the resources available on the internet and books.
• My school for giving me a great opportunity in learning this interesting topic and making a project
based on it.
Ryan Gilmore, B.S. (Western New England University, Springfield, MA), Robyn Crook, PhD (University of Texas Medical School at Houston,
Houston, TX) & Jacob L Krans, PhD (Western New England University, Springfield, MA) © 2016 Nature Education
Citation: Gilmore, R., Crook, R. & Krans, J. L. (2016) Cephalopod Camouflage: Cells and Organs of the Skin. Nature Education 9(2):1
• Special thanks to Dr. Roger Hanlon & George Bell at The Marine Biological Laboratory
Thank you all so much for your valuable contributions towards this project.
4
INDEX
SL.NO Contents Pg.no
1 Objective and 6
Introduction
2 Procedure 7
3 Observations 8
4 Conclusion and 12
bibliography
5
OBJECTIVE -
Objective and aim of this experiment:
To find out what causes camouflage in several animals
INTRODUCTION-
Camouflage, also called cryptic coloration, is a defense or tactic that organisms use to disguise their appearance, usually to blend in with
their surroundings. Organisms use camouflage to mask their location, identity, and movement. This allows prey to avoid predators, and
for predators to sneak up on prey.
A species’ camouflage depends on several factors. The physical characteristics of the organism are important. Animals with fur rely on
different camouflage tactics than those with feathers or scales, for instance. Feathers and scales can be shed and changed fairly regularly
and quickly. Fur, on the other hand, can take weeks or even months to grow in. Animals with fur are more often camouflaged by season. The
arctic fox, for example, has a white coat in the winter, while its summer coat is brown.
The behavior of a species is also important. Animals that live in groups differ from those that are solitary. The stripes on a zebra, for instance,
make it stand out. However, zebras are social animals, meaning they live and migrate in large groups called herds. When clustered together,
it is nearly impossible to tell one zebra from another, making it difficult for predators such as lions to stalk an individual animal.
A species’ camouflage is also influenced by the behavior or characteristics of its predators. If the predator is color-blind, for example,
the prey species will not need to match the color of its surroundings. Lions, the main predator of zebras, are color-blind. Zebras’ black-and-
white camouflage does not need to blend in to their habitat, the golden savanna of central Africa.
6
Environmental and behavioral factors cause species to employ a wide variety of camouflage tactics. Some of these tactics, such as background
matching and disruptive coloration, are forms of mimicry. Mimicry is when one organism looks or acts like an object or another organism.
Background matching is perhaps the most common camouflage tactic. In background matching, a species conceals itself by resembling its surroundings in
coloration, form, or movement. In its simplest form, animals such as deer and squirrels resemble the “earth tones” of their surroundings. Fish such as
flounder almost exactly match their speckled seafloor habitats.
More complex forms of background matching include the camouflage of the walking stick and walking leaf. These two insects, both native to southeast
Asia, look and act like their namesakes. Patterns on the edge of the walking leaf’s body resemble bite marks left by caterpillars in leaves. The insect even
sways from side to side as it walks, to better mimic the swaying of a leaf in the breeze.
Another camouflage tactic is disruptive coloration. In disruptive coloration, the identity and location of a species may be disguised through a coloration
pattern. This form of visual disruption causes predators to misidentify what they are looking at. Many butterflies have large, circular patterns on the upper
part of their wings. These patterns, called eyespots, resemble the eyes of animals much larger than the butterfly, such as owls. Eyespots may
confuse predators such as birds and misdirect them from the soft, vulnerable part of the butterfly’s body.
Camouflage can change with the environment. Many animals, such as the arctic fox, change their camouflage with the seasons.
Octopuses camouflage themselves in response to a threat. Other species, such as nudibranchs—brightly colored, soft-bodied ocean “slugs”—can change
their skin coloration by changing their diet.
PROCEDURE
PROCEDURE-
• Observe an animal which camouflages i.e a chameleon in nature.
• Videos can also be referred to see the colour change in animals and how they react to nature and danger from predators.
• What causes them to camouflage including their internal body organisation and external conditions or any dangerous situations.
• If there are any specialised cells or tissues which cause then to camouflage.
• Why are these specialised cells or tissues (if present ) found only in various animals? 7
• What would happen if all the animals camouflage as a defense from danger?
OBSERVATIONS-
The ocean can be a dangerous place, and being a squishy piece of delicious, nutritious muscle is not ideal given that so many capable
predators abound. Coleoid cephalopods, a group that includes octopuses, cuttlefish and squid, experience the selective
pressure of predation from eels, nurse sharks, and a great many fishes (Aronson, 1991). Yet based on molecular findings, coleoid cephalopods
have been present since the early Devonian period, diverging from their ancestor over 400 million years ago (Bergmann et al., 2006). Survival
might be hopeless for soft bodied coleoid cephalopods if it were not for camouflage. In addition to hiding in crevices and small holes that
these soft-body mollusks easily fit into (Sheel & Bisson, 2012), many cephalopods rely on sophisticated tissues - the chromatophores,
iridophores, leucophores and papillae - to blend in with their surroundings and disrupt their body outlines, making them much more difficult
to locate by sight. Many coleoids share these tissues and organs, but the common and mimic octopuses (Octopus vulgaris and Thaumoctopus
mimicus, respectively) have received much attention in popular media over the past decade.
What are chromatophores?
Chromatophores are organs that are present in the skin of many cephalopods, such as squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses, which contain pigment sacs that
become more visible as small radial muscles pull the sac open making the pigment expand under the skin.
8
Electrical activity within a chromatophore nerve causes the radial muscle fibers of the
chromatophore to pull outward toward the perimeter of the chromatophore,
expanding the central pigment sack. Early morphologic and physiologic work by
Florey showed that the radial muscles widen the pigment sac with
increasing frequency of the nerve electrical activity. The radial muscles are thought to
be connected to each other by gap junctions so that they ‘dilate' the chromatophore
in a symmetrical fashion. The elastomeric properties of the membrane around the
pigment granules -the cytoeslastic sacculus is thought to be responsible for
contracting the chromatophore after it has opened. The chromatophores can be
opened quickly because they are controlled neurally: squid, cuttlefish and octopuses
can change colors within milliseconds.
Xanthophores and erythrophores
Chromatophores that contain large amounts of yellow pteridine pigments are named
xanthophores and those with an excess of red/ orange carotenoids termed erythrophores. It was
discovered that pteridine and carotenoid containing vesicles are sometimes found within the
same cell, and that the overall colour depends on the ratio of red and yellow pigments.
Therefore the distinction between these chromatophore types is essentially arbitrary. The
capacity to generate pteridines from guanosine triphosphate is a feature common to most
chromatophores, but xanthophores appear to have supplemental biochemical pathways that
result in an excess accumulation of yellow pigment. In contrast, carotenoids are metabolised
from the diet and transported to erythrophores. This was first demonstrated by rearing
normally green frogs on a diet of carotene-restricted crickets. The absence of carotene in the
frog's diet meant the red/orange carotenoid colour 'filter' was not present in erythrophores. This
resulted in the frog appearing blue in colour, instead of green.
Iridophores and leucophores
Iridophores, sometimes also called guanophores, are pigment cells that reflect light using
plates of crystalline schemochromes made from guanine. When illuminated they generate 9
iridescent colours because of the diffraction of light within the stacked platesof.
Orientation of the schemochrome determines the nature of the colour observed. By using biochromes as coloured filters,
iridophores create an optical effect known as Tyndall or Rayleigh scattering, producing bright blue or green colours. A
related type of chromatophore, the leucophore, is found in some fish species. Like iridophores, they utilize
crystalline purines to reflect light, providing the bright white colour seen in some fish. As with xanthophores and
erythrophores, the distinction between iridophores and leucophores in fish is not always obvious, but generally iridophores
are considered to generate iridescent or metallic colours while leucophores produce reflective white hues.
Melanophores
Melanophores contain eumelanin, a type of melanin, that appears black or dark brown because of its light absorbing
qualities. It is packaged in vesicles called melanosomes and distributed throughout the cell. Eumelanin is generated
from tyrosine in a series of catalysed chemical reactions. It is a complex chemical containing units of dihydroxyindole and
dihydroxyindole-2- carboxylic acid with some pyrrole rings. The key enzyme in melanin synthesis is tyrosinase. When
this protein is defective, no melanin can be generated resulting in certain types of albinism. In some amphibian species
there are other pigments packaged alongside eumelanin. For example, a novel deep red coloured pigment was identified in A veiled chameleon, Chamaeleo
the melanophores of phyllomedusine frogs. This was subsequently identified as pterorhodin, a pteridine dimer that calyptratus. Structural green and
accumulates around eumelanin. While it is likely that other lesser studied species have complex melanophore pigments, it blue colours are generated by
is nevertheless true that the majority of melanophores studied to date do contain eumelanin exclusively. overlaying chromatophore types
Humans have only one class of pigment cell, the mammalian equivalent of melanophores, to generate skin, hair and eye to reflect filtered light.
colour. For this reason, and because the large number and contrasting colour of the cells usually make them very easy to
visualise, melanophores are by far the most widely studied chromatophore. However, there are differences between the
biology melanophores and melanocytes. In addition to eumelanin, melanocytes can generate a yellow/red pigment
called phaeomelanin.
Cyanophores
It was demonstrated that the vibrant blue colours in some types of mandarin fish are not generated by schemochromes.
Instead, a cyan biochrome of unknown chemical nature is responsible. This pigment, found within vesicles in at least two
species callionymid fish, is highly unusual in the animal kingdom, as all other blue colourings thus far investigated are
schemochromatic. Therefore a novel chromatophore type, the cyanophore, was proposed. Although they appear unusual in
their taxonomic restriction, there may be cyanophores (as well as further unusual chromatophore types) in other fish and
amphibians. For example, bright coloured chromatophores with undefined pigments have been observed in both poison
10
dart frogs and glass frogs.
WHY CAN ONLY SOME ANIMALS
CAMOUFLAGE?
Since most of the reptiles have camouflaging agent ,
they have Chromatophores are pigment-containing and light-
reflecting cells found in amphibians, fish, reptiles, crustaceans,
and cephalopods. They are largely responsible for generating
skin and eye colour in cold-blooded animals and are generated
in the neural crest during embryonic development.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ALL THE ANIMALS HAD
CAMOUFLAGING AGENTS PRESENT IN THEIR
BODY?
If all the animals camouflaged , it would affect the
consumption of animals. As most of the animals are
dependent on other animals for survival, it would not be
possinble to find them in the place of camouflage and this
would affect the trophic levels as all the animals would not
survive in this case.
Zebrafish chromatophores
mediate background adaptation chromatophores
on exposure to dark (top) and
light environments (bottom). iridiophores
11
CONCLUSION-
Cephalopod camouflage is among the most dynamic in the animal kingdom, helping their lineage of soft-bodied and otherwise vulnerable relatives survive
for hundreds of millions of years. While the individual components of the camouflage system have received extensive study and are relatively well
understood, how cephalopods choose which camouflaging patterns to express in different circumstances is still quite mysterious. The different control
mechanisms for chromatophores, iridophores, leucophores and papillae require cephalopods to integrate different types of visual information into a
cohesive, matching pattern. How their brains process visual information from their eyes and possibly also their skin, then send out the correct commands
to their camouflaging tissues, is something we do not yet understand. Knowing more about the stealthy skin tricks of cephalopods can help us understand
more about their behavior and evolution, and might also be useful for developing our own camouflaging materials in the future. Maybe one day our
nations' soldiers will be wearing camouflaging clothing that matches their background and reduces high contrast silhouette lines as quickly and as well as
cephalopod skin does.
BIBLIOGRAPHY-
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/camouflage/
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animal-camouflage.htm
https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/cephalopod-camouflage-cells-and-organs-of-the-144048968/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatophore
12
THANK YOU!
