Camouflage through behavior in moths: the role of background matching and disruptive coloration

Changku Kang, Martin Stevens, Jong-yeol Moon, Sang-Im Lee and Piotr G. Jablonski

Behavioral Ecology, 2015, vol. 26, issue 1, 45-54

Abstract: Camouflage can be attained via mechanisms such as background matching (resembling the general background) and disruptive coloration (hindering the detection of an animal’s outline). However, despite much conceptual work with artificial stimuli there have to date been few studies of how such camouflage types work in real animals in their natural environments. Here, using avian vision models and image analysis, we tested which concealing mechanisms operate to provide camouflage during behavioral choice of a resting position in 2 bark-resting moths, Hypomecis roboraria and Jankowskia fuscaria. Our results suggest that both species reinforced their crypticity in terms of both background matching and disruptive coloration. However, the detailed mechanisms (such as achromatic/chromatic matching or pattern direction matching) that each species exploits differed between the 2 species. Our results demonstrate that an appropriate behavioral choice of background and body orientation is important to improve camouflage against natural predators, and highlight the mechanisms that confer camouflage to cryptic animals in their natural habitats.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/aru150 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:26:y:2015:i:1:p:45-54.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().