Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T23:12:33.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The history, theory and evidence for a cryptic function of countershading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Hannah M. Rowland
Edited by
Martin Stevens  and
Sami Merilaita
Hannah M. Rowland
Affiliation:
The University of Liverpool
Martin Stevens
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Sami Merilaita
Affiliation:
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Get access

Summary

It has been evolved alike in many unrelated groups of animals by the hunter and the hunted; in the sea and on land. It tones the canvas on which are painted the Leopard's spots, the Tiger's stripes, and the patterns of smaller Carnivora such as Serval and Ocelot, Civet, and Genet, Jackal and Hyaena. It is the dress almost universally worn by rodents, including the Vizcacha, Jerboas, Gerbils, Cavies, Agouties, Hares, and many other. It is the essential uniform adopted by Conies, Asses, Antelopes, Deer, and other groups of ungulates. It is repeated extensively among the marsupials, as seen in the coloration of the Tasmanian wolf, Opossums, Wallabies and others. It forms the background to reveal the beautiful subtle picture patterns worn by Wheatears, Warblers, Pipits, Woodcock, Bustards, and innumerable other birds. It provides a basic livery for the great majority of snakes, lizards, and amphibians. Among insects it reaches a fine state of perfection in different caterpillars and grasshoppers.

Hugh Cott (1940)

In 1896 American artist and naturalist Abbott Handerson Thayer published an article in The Auk entitled ‘The law which underlies protective coloration’. In this article he observed that ‘animals are painted by nature darkest on those parts which tend to be most lighted by the sky's light, and vice versa’. As an example, Thayer described the plumage of the ruffed grouse, whose feathers are dark brown on the back and blend gradually into white on the underneath. Such a gradation in shading, Thayer hypothesised, made three-dimensional bodies appear less round and less solid by balancing and neutralising the effects of illumination by the sun. Thayer called this type of patterning obliterative shading, which today we term countershading.

Type
Chapter
Information
Animal Camouflage
Mechanisms and Function
 , pp. 53 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrowclough, G. F. & Sibley, F. C. 1980. Feather pigmentation and abrasion: test of a hypothesis. The Auk, 97, 881–883.Google Scholar
Beddard, F. E. 1895. Animal Colouration: An Account of the Principal Facts and Theories relating to the Colours and Markings of Animals. London: Swan Sonnenschein.Google Scholar
Behrens, R. R. 2002. False Colours: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage: Dysart, IA: Bobolink Press.Google Scholar
Berbaum, K., Bever, T. & Chung, C. 1983. Light source position in the perception of object shape. Perception, 12, 411–415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergman, G. 1982. Why are the wings of Larus fuscus so dark? Ornis Fennica, 59, 77–83.Google Scholar
Braude, S., Ciszek, D., Berg, N. E. & Shefferly, N. 2001. The ontogeny and distribution of countershading in colonies of the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber). Journal of Zoology, 253, 351–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burtt, E. H. 1986. An analysis of physical, physiological, and optical aspects of avian coloration with emphasis on wood warblers. Ornithological Monographs, 38, 1–109.Google Scholar
Bustard, H. R. 1970. The adaptive significance of coloration in hatching green sea turtles. Herpetologica, 26, 224–227.Google Scholar
Cairns, D. K. 1986. Plumage colour in pursuit-diving seabirds: why do penguins wear tuxedos? Bird Behaviour, 6, 58–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caro, T., Merilaita, S. & Stevens, M. 2008. The colours of animals: from Wallace to the present day. I. Cryptic coloration. In Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace, eds. Smith, C. H. & Beccaloni, G.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 125–143.Google Scholar
Chapman, F. M. 1933. Autobiography of a Bird- Lover. New York: Appleton-Century.Google Scholar
Chester, J. 2001. The Nature of Penguins. San Francisco, CA: Celestial Arts.Google Scholar
Cott, H. B. 1940. Adaptive Coloration in Animals. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Cowles, R. B. & Bogert, C. M. 1944. A preliminary study of the thermal requirements of desert reptiles. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 83, 265–296.Google Scholar
Craik, K. J. 1944. White plumage of seabirds. Nature, 153, 228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuthill, I. C., Stevens, M., Sheppard, J.et al. 2005. Disruptive coloration and background pattern matching. Nature, 434, 72–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dakin, W. J. 1942. The Art of Camouflage. Canberra, ACT: Department of Defence.Google Scholar
De Ruiter, L. 1956. Countershading in caterpillars: an analysis of its adaptive significance. Archives Neerlandaises de Zoologie, 11, 285–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmunds, M. 1974. Defence in Animals: A Survey of Anti-Predator Defences. Harlow, UK: Longman.Google Scholar
Edmunds, M. & Dewhirst, R. A. 1994. The survival value of countershading with wild birds as predators. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 51, 447–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmunds, M. & Grayson, J. 1991. Camouflage and selective predation in caterpillars of the poplar and eyed hawkmoths (Laothoe populi and Smerinthus ocellata). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 42, 467–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, A. 2009. Campaigners for camouflage: Abbott H. Thayer and William J. Dakin. Leonardo, 42, 36–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endler, J. A. 1984. Progressive background in moths, and a quantitative measure of crypsis. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 22, 187–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, E. B. 1945. Butterflies. London: Bloomsbury Books.Google Scholar
Gotmark, F. 1987. White underparts in gulls function as hunting camouflage. Animal Behaviour, 35, 1786–1792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1991. Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Grayson, J. & Edmunds, M. 1989. The causes of color and color-change in caterpillars of the poplar and eyed hawkmoths (Laothoe populi and Smerinthus ocellata). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 37, 263–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, W. J. 1973. Life's Colour Code. London: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Heráň, I. 1976. Animal Colouration: The Nature and Purpose of Colours in Vertebrates. London: Hamlyn.Google Scholar
Kamilar, J. M. 2009. Interspecific variation in primate countershading: effects of activity pattern, body mass, and phylogeny. International Journal of Primatology, 30, 877–891.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kekäläinen, J., Huuskonen, H., Kiviniemi, V. & Taskinen, J. 2010. Visual conditions and habitat shape the coloration of the Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis L.): a trade-off between camouflage and communication? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 99, 47–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiltie, R. A. 1988. Countershading: universally deceptive or deceptively universal? Trends In Ecology and Evolution, 3, 21–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kiltie, R. A. 1989. Testing Thayer's countershading hypothesis: an image-processing approach. Animal Behaviour, 38, 542–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiltie, R. A., Fan, J. & Laine, A. F. 1995. A wavelet-based metric for visual texture discrimination with applications in evolutionary ecology. Mathematical Biosciences, 126, 21–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleffner, D. A. & Ramachandran, V. S. 1992. On the perception of shape from shading. Perception and Psychophysics, 52, 18–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Korner, H. K. 1982. Countershading by physiological color-change in the fish louse Anilocra physodes L. (Crustacea, Isopoda). Oecologia, 55, 248–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liebert, T. G. & Brakefield, P. M. 1987. Behavioural studies on the peppered moth Biston betularia and a discussion of the role of pollution and lichens in industrial melanism. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 31, 129–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, B. & Todd, J. T. 2004. Perceptual biases in the interpretation of 3D shape from shading. Vision Research, 44, 2135–2145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Longley, W. H. 1916. Observations upon tropical fishes and inferences from their adaptive coloration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 2, 733–737.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Longley, W. H. 1917. Studies upon the biological significance of animal coloration. I. The colors and colour changes of West Indian reef-fishes. Journal of Experimental Zoology, 23, 533–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, C. & Goodman-Lowe, G. 1996. Suntanning in hammerhead sharks. Nature, 383, 677.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Merilaita, S., Tuomi, J. &, Jormalainen, V. 1999. Optimization of cryptic coloration in heterogeneous habitats. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 67, 151–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merilaita, S., Lyytinen, A. & Mappes, J. 2001. Selection for cryptic coloration in a visually heterogeneous habitat. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 268, 1925–1929.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, M. G. & Patterson, L. B. 2009. Not just black and white: pigment pattern development and evolution in vertebrates. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology, 20, 72–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mingolla, E. & Todd, J. T. 1986. Perception of solid shape from shading. Biological Cybernetics, 53, 137–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mitchell, D., Paniker, L., Sanchez, G., Trono, D. & Nairn, R. 2007. The etiology of sunlight-induced melanoma in Xiphophorus hybrid fish. Molecular Carcinogenesis, 46, 679–684.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moan, J., Porojnicu, A. C. & Dahlback, A. 2008. Ultraviolet radiation and malignant melanoma. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 624, 104–116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moss, R., Jackson, R. R. & Pollard, S. D. 2006. Hiding in the grass: background matching conceals moths (Lepidoptera : Crambidae) from detection by spider eyes (Araneae : Salticidae). New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 33, 207–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, K. S. 1967. Color adaptation in desert reptiles and its thermal relationships. In Lizard Ecology: A Symposium, ed. Milstead, W. W.Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, pp. 163–229.Google Scholar
Norris, K. S. & Lowe, C. H. 1964. An analysis of background colour-matching in amphibians and reptiles. Ecology, 45, 565–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philips, G. C. 1962. Survival value of the white coloration of gulls and other sea birds. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Oxford, UK.
Porter, J. 1997. The Colour Identification Guide to the Caterpillars of the British Isles (Macrolepidoptera). London: Viking.Google Scholar
Poulton, E. B. 1888. Notes in 1887 upon lepidopterous larvae, etc., including a complete account of the life-history of the larvae of Sphinx convolvuli and Aglia tau. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 515–606.
Poulton, E. B. 1890. The Colours of Animals: Their Meaning and Use, Especially Considered in the Case of Insects. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulton, E. B. 1909. The value of colour in the struggle for life. In Darwin and Modern Science: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of The Origin of Species. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. 1988. Perceiving shape from shading. Scientific American, 59, 76–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Recher, H. F. 1972. Colour dimorphism and the ecology of herons. Ibis, 114, 552–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, H. M. 2009. From Abbott Thayer to the present day: what have we learned about the function of countershading? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, 364, 519–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, H. M., Speed, M. P., Ruxton, G. D.et al. 2007. Countershading enhances cryptic protection: an experiment with wild birds and artificial prey. Animal Behaviour, 74, 1249–1258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, H. M., Cuthill, I. C., Harvey, I. F., Speed, M. & Ruxton, G. D. 2008. Can't tell the caterpillars from the trees: countershading enhances survival in a woodland. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 275, 2539–2545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruxton, G. D., Sherratt, T. N. & Speed, M. P. 2004a. Avoiding Attack: The Evolutionary Ecology of Crypsis, Warning Signals and Mimicry. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruxton, G. D., Speed, M. & Kelly, D. J. 2004b. What, if anything, is the adaptive function of countershading. Animal Behaviour, 68, 445–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandoval, C. P. 1994. Differential visual predation on morphs of Timema cristinae (Phasmatodeae, Timemidae) and its consequences for host range. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 52, 341–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellers, P. E. & Allen, J. A. 1991. On adopting the right attitude: a demonstration of the survival value of choosing a matching background. Journal of Biological Education, 25, 111–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheppard, P. M. 1975. Natural Selection and Heredity. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Sherratt, T. N., Pollitt, D. & Wilkinson, D. M. 2007. The evolution of crypsis in replicating populations of web-based prey. Oikos, 116, 449–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speed, M. P., Kelly, D. J., Davidson, A. M. & Ruxton, G. D. 2005. Countershading enhances crypsis with some bird species but not others. Behavioral Ecolog,y 16, 327–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, M., Parraga, C. A., Cuthill, I. C., Partridge, J. C. & Troscianko, T. S. 2007. Using digital photography to study animal coloration. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 90, 211–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoner, C. J., Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P. & Caro, T. 2003a. The adaptive significance of coloration in lagomorphs. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 79, 309–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoner, C. J., Caro, T. M. & Graham, C. M. 2003b. Ecological and behavioral correlates of coloration in artiodactyls: systematic analyses of conventional hypotheses. Behavioral Ecology, 14, 823–840.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suffert, F. 1932–1933. Phanomene visueller anpassung. I Biss III mitteilung. Die visuelle Wirkung der Raupe und der Puppe von Colias endusa (Lepidoptera, Pieridae), bedingt durch form, farbung, und Einstellung zur Lichtrichung. Zeitchrift für Morpologie und. Ökologie, 26, 147–316.Google Scholar
Thayer, A. H. 1896. The law which underlies protective coloration. The Auk, 13, 124–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thayer, G. H. 1909. Concealing-Colouration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposition of the Laws of Disguise through Colour and Pattern, Being a Summary of Abbot H. Thayer's Discoveries. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tinbergen, N. 1958. Curious Naturalists. London: Country Life.Google Scholar
Tomonaga, M. 1998. Perception of shape from shading in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens). Animal Cognition, 1, 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, E. R. A. 1961. Survival value of different methods of camouflage as shown in a model population. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 136, 273–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, A. R. 1889. Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of its Applications. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ward, J. M., Blount, J. D., Ruxton, G. D. & Houston, D. C. 2002. The adaptive significance of dark plumage for birds in desert environments. Ardea, 90, 311–323.Google Scholar
Wente, W. H. & Phillips, J. B. 2005. Microhabitat selection by the Pacific treefrog, Hyla regilla. Animal Behaviour, 70, 279–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, D. M. & Sherratt, T. N. 2008. The art of concealment. Biologist, 55, 10–15.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×