concealing coloration

concealing coloration

   in animals, the use of biological coloration to mask location, identity, and movement, providing concealment from prey and protection from predators. Background matching is a type of concealment in which an organism avoids recognition by resembling its background in coloration, form, or movement. In disruptive coloration, the identity and location of an animal may be concealed through a coloration pattern that causes visual disruption because the pattern does not coincide with the shape and outline of the animal's body. Countershading is a form of concealing coloration in which the upper surfaces of the body are more darkly pigmented than the unilluminated lower areas, giving the body a more uniform darkness and a lack of depth relief.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • coloration — colorational, adj. colorationally, adv. /kul euh ray sheuhn/, n. appearance with regard to color arrangement or use of colors; coloring: the bold coloration of some birds. [1605 15; COLOR + ATION] * * * ▪ biology Introduction       in biology,… …   Universalium

  • Animal coloration — Chapman s Zebras in Botswana, displaying their outline disrupting camouflage Animal coloration has been a topic of interest and research in biology for well over a century. According to Charles Darwin s 1859 theory of natural selection,[1 …   Wikipedia

  • lepidopteran — /lep i dop teuhr euhn/, adj. 1. lepidopterous. n. 2. a lepidopterous insect. [1850 55; LEPIDOPTER(A) + AN] * * * Any of the more than 100,000 species constituting the order Lepidoptera (Greek: scaly wing ): butterflies, moths, and skippers. The… …   Universalium

  • Abbott Handerson Thayer — Infobox Artist bgcolour = #6495ED name = Abbott Handerson Thayer imagesize = caption = A Virgin (1892 93), painted allusion to Winged Victory of Samothrace birthname = birthdate = birth date |1849|8|12| location = Boston, Massachusetts deathdate …   Wikipedia

  • integument — /in teg yeuh meuhnt/, n. 1. a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind. 2. any covering, coating, enclosure, etc. [1605 15; < L integumentum a covering. See IN 2, TEGUMENT] Syn. 1. cortex, involucre, involucrum. * * * Covering of the body,… …   Universalium

  • scorpaeniform — Introduction also called  mail cheeked fish,         any member of the order Scorpaeniformes, a group of bony fishes that includes the sea robins, sculpins, and numerous other forms. They are characterized by a plate of bone running across each… …   Universalium

  • mimicry — /mim ik ree/, n., pl. mimicries. 1. the act, practice, or art of mimicking. 2. Biol. the close external resemblance of an organism, the mimic, to some different organism, the model, such that the mimic benefits from the mistaken identity, as… …   Universalium

  • insect — insectival /in sek tuy veuhl/, adj. /in sekt/, n. 1. any animal of the class Insecta, comprising small, air breathing arthropods having the body divided into three parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), and having three pairs of legs and usually two… …   Universalium

  • sloth — /slawth/ or, esp. for 2, /slohth/, n. 1. habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; laziness. 2. any of several slow moving, arboreal, tropical American edentates of the family Bradypodidae, having a long, coarse, grayish brown coat often of …   Universalium

  • Military camouflage — See also: List of camouflage patterns Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division (US Army) wearing the Army Combat Uniform in MultiCam …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”