Cool Camouflage: Insects that Blend in with Nature
Is that a decomposed leaf you see? Nope, it’s actually a dead leaf mantis. Why is that twig moving? Perhaps it’s a walking stick.
These insects — and many others like them — play the ultimate game of hide-and-seek, blending in so well with their surroundings that they go unnoticed until they decide to be seen.
Sometimes it’s for protection against predators, like in the case of some butterflies. Many species, such as the painted lady and the Monarch, have bright coloration on one side and dull or splotchy coloration on the other, Nancy Greig, director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, told Weather.com. When they land and close their wings, they take on the size, shape and shades of a leaf.
Other bugs are camouflaged to make capturing food easier, Greig said. Leaf mantises fall into this category. “They are sit-and-wait predators,” said the plant ecologist, who has studied insects for decades. “They just sit there looking like a leaf until some insect that doesn’t see them comes along.”
The mantis could be a brown, rotting leaf, like the dead leaf mantis, or a healthy vibrant one, like the green leaf mantis. Or it could look like a blossom. “One we get sometimes is called the orchid mantis, which is white or pink,” Greig added. “If it’s in a flower, you can’t even see it. It’s incredibly camouflaged.”
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The technical name for the ability of these bugs to blend with their environment is called crypsis, according to the Amateur Entomologists’ Society (AES). There’s also olfactory crypsis, when these insects use scent to mask their whereabouts. Take, for example, the death’s-head hawkmoth, which steals nectar from a beehive. “The moth avoids attack from the bees by mimicking the scent/pheromone of the bees,” AES writes.
Some insects incorporate this camouflage into their behavior in other ways. Walking sticks do it with their movement — or lack thereof. “They stay still most of the time. When they do move … they have this little rocking back and forth,” Greig said. “Predators watch for movement. If it’s just a leaf that’s flapping in the wind, you ignore that.”
But the award for perhaps the most creative natural camouflage goes to the giant swallowtail and viceroy butterflies, whose caterpillars resemble bird droppings, according to Greig. This allows them to sit atop leaves during the day and go unnoticed (much like bird poop wouldn’t move). Instead, they’re active at night.
Above, the slideshow shows some of nature’s most innovative camouflaged insects.
Below, 13 invasive insects that are threatening our plants.
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