Active camouflage
camouflage that adapts to the surroundings of an object
Active camouflage, adaptive camouflage, or chameleonizing is camouflage that adapts, often rapidly, to the surroundings of an object such as an animal or military vehicle. In theory, active camouflage could provide perfect concealment from visual detection.
Active camouflage occurs in several groups of animals, including reptiles on land, and cephalopod molluscs and flatfish in the sea. Animals achieve active camouflage both by color change and (among marine animals such as squid) by counter-illumination, with the use of bioluminescence.
Military counter-illumination camouflage was first investigated during World War II for marine use. More recent research has aimed to achieve crypsis by using cameras to sense the visible background, and by controlling systems that can vary their appearance, such as coatings, or variable temperature infrared panels using the Peltier effect.
In animals
Active camouflage is used in several groups of animals including cephalopod molluscs, fish, and reptiles. There are two mechanisms of active camouflage in animals: color change and counter-illumination.
Counter-illumination
Counter-illumination is camouflage using the production of light to blend in against a lit background. In the sea, light comes down from the surface, so when marine animals are seen from below, they appear darker than the background.
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This entry incorporates text from “Active camouflage” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.