Juvenile plaice (<i>Pleuronectes platessa</i>) produce camouflage by flexibly combining two separate patterns

Kelman, Emma; Tiptus, Palap; Osorio, Daniel

doi:10.1242/jeb.02380

Cited by 53 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Estimating the quality of camouflage of the juvenile Sepia pharaonis, or indeed any animal, is difficult (Kelman et al, 2006). The patterns expressed were a reasonable match to the brightness and texture, but there was no obvious effect of the background stripe width (Fig.·1).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…), which often lie on the sea-bed rather like flatfish, alter their appearance according to the background substrate. Under these conditions the patterns adopted by juveniles at rest are probably cryptic, although this is hard to prove (Kelman et al, 2006). In visual psychology a central idea is that neural codes represent images by a small number of parameters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cuttlefish responses to visual orientation of substrates, water flow and a model of motion camouflage

Shohet

Baddeley

Anderson

et al. 2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARY Low-level mechanisms in vertebrate vision are sensitive to line orientation. Here we investigate orientation sensitivity in the cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis, by allowing animals to settle on stripe patterns. When camouflaging themselves cuttlefish are known to be sensitive to image parameters such as contrast and spatial scale, but we find no effect of background orientation on the patterns displayed. It is nonetheless clear that the animals see orientation, because they prefer to rest with the body-axis perpendicular to the stripes. We consider three possible mechanisms to account for this behaviour. Firstly, that the body patterns are themselves oriented,and that the cuttlefish align themselves to aid static camouflage. This is unlikely, as the patterns displayed have no dominant orientation at any spatial scale. A second possibility is that motion camouflage favours alignment of the body orthogonal to background stripes, and we suggest how this alignment can minimise motion signals produced by occlusion. Thirdly we show that cuttlefish prefer to rest with their body-axis parallel to the water flow, and it is possible that they use visual patterns such as sand ripples to determine water flow.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cuttlefish responses to visual orientation of substrates, water flow and a model of motion camouflage

Shohet

Baddeley

Anderson

et al. 2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…In Paralichthys both the mean reflectance and the contrast of the background influence the coloration, and the maximum contrast across the body ranged from 14% to 70% (Saidel 1988). Another North Atlantic species, the plaice (Pleuronectes platessa; Figure 1A; Kelman et al 2006), has an advantage over the summer and winter flounders in that it can add two patterns to a fairly uniform 'ground' pattern. One of these patterns comprises predominantly about 30 small (< 5mm diameter) dark and light spots in roughly equal numbers, the other is blurred dark blotches, which form a low-frequency grating-like pattern.…”

Section: Flatfish Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The plaice varies the level of expression of two patterns, which we call blotches and spots. These can be expressed at low-levels (i), separately (ii, iii) or mixed (iv) (Adapted from Kelman et al 2006). The cuttlefish displays a great range of patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Osorio

Cuthill²

2014

Oxford Handbooks Online

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms AbstractCamouflage allows the bearer to 'hide in plain sight' by means of colour patterns that interfere with detection. Basic principles of camouflage that were proposed over a century ago by artists and natural historians have informed recent studies that seek to tease apart the different mechanisms by which camouflage exploits perception. The probability of detection is lowered by matching background colours and textures or using sharply contrasting colours to disrupt the body's outline or salient features such as eyes. The effectiveness of much animal camouflage against humans, even though the patterns evolved to fool different viewers, suggests that diverse visual systems share similar principles of perceptual organization. As such, animal camouflage might reveal universal principles that apply regardless of retinal organisation and neural architecture. We review the recent literature on animal camouflage in this light, from experimental studies of texture perception by fish and cephalopod molluscs, to the visual effects used to defeat figure ground segregation of 2-D and 3-D objects in birds and mammals.

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“…Most work on color change for camouflage has been undertaken on species that are capable of very rapid (a few seconds) changes in appearance, such as cephalopods, chameleons, and flatfish (Ramachandran et al, 1996;Kelman et al, 2006). However, such rapid color change is seemingly not widespread in other animal groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Color change and camouflage in juvenile shore crabs Carcinus maenas

2014

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Camouflage is perhaps the most widespread anti-predator defense in nature, with many different types thought to exist. Of these, resembling the general color and pattern of the background (background matching) is likely to be the most common. Background matching can be achieved by adaptation of individual appearance to different habitats or substrates, behavioral choice, and color change. Although the ability to change coloration for camouflage over a period of hours or days is likely to be widely found among animals, few studies have quantified this against different backgrounds. Here, we test whether juvenile shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) are capable of color change for camouflage by placing them on either black or white (experiment 1) or red and green (experiment 2) backgrounds. We find that crabs are capable of significant changes in brightness, becoming lighter on white backgrounds and darker on black backgrounds. Using models of predator (avian) vision, we show that these differences are large enough in many individuals to lead to perceptible changes in appearance. Furthermore, comparisons of crabs with the backgrounds show that changes are likely to lead to significant improvements in camouflage and potentially reduced detection probabilities. Crabs underwent some changes on the red and green backgrounds, but visual modeling indicated that these changes were very small and unlikely to be detectable. Our experiment shows that crabs are able to adjust their camouflage by changes in brightness over a period of hours, and that this could influence detection probability by predators.

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Juvenile plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) produce camouflage by flexibly combining two separate patterns

Cited by 53 publications

References 23 publications

Cuttlefish responses to visual orientation of substrates, water flow and a model of motion camouflage

Cuttlefish responses to visual orientation of substrates, water flow and a model of motion camouflage

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Color change and camouflage in juvenile shore crabs Carcinus maenas

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