Text | Xin Yu's "textile girl" who looks like a dead leaf uses camouflage to avoid predators. Image source: Shutterstock/Dr Morley Read New research shows that states disguised as inanimate objects can avoid predators better than other methods. If this visual deception method, ca

Category：science

2025-03-28

text | Xin Yu

"textile girl" who looks like dead leaves uses camouflage to avoid predators. Image source: Shutterstock/Dr Morley Read

New research shows that states disguised as inanimate objects can avoid predators better than other methods. If this visual deception of , which is called "mask camouflage", is used, the time it is found by the predator is 4 times that of without camouflage.

evolution makes animals hide themselves in various ways: the stripes on zebra make it difficult to tell them from the flock, some spiders are ignored because they look like bird droppings, and chameleon can even disappear in the context of the environment. But until now, no one has studied how these hidden methods are superimposed on each other in plain sight.

Brazil Campinas State University Joao Vitor de Alcantara Viana noted that there has never been a study and comparison of the types of disguise. So this would be a great opportunity to understand how camouflage evolves and how different types of camouflage interact.

To find the most effective camouflage strategy, the Viana team collected data from 84 studies on various predators and prey. They found that any form of camouflage can increase the search time of the predator by an average of 63% and reduce the likelihood of attack by 27%. Animals disguised as rocks, plants or feces can successfully delay attacks, increasing predator search time by 295%.

Other camouflage methods, such as incorporating the background or using a messy color pattern, can increase the search time of the predator by about 55%.

Anna Hughes, University of Essex, UK, believes that the study helps to identify possible knowledge gaps in the field. Rafael Campos Duarte, co-author of the paper of

and Brazil, said the study had limitations in geographical distribution, because most of the studies on camouflage species that researchers were able to review were from North America and Europe. As research develops, they hope to study this phenomenon on a more diverse global scale.

Related research was published in the British Journal of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.