Camouflage

A Reading A–Z Level T Leveled Book

Word Count: 1,855
Camouflage

Written by Kira Freed

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Camouflage
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page 19: © Satoshi Kuribayashi/Nature Production/Minden Pictures

Written by Kira Freed Camouflage

Level T Leveled Book Correlation
© Learning A–Z LEVEL T
Written by Kira Freed
Fountas & Pinnell P
All rights reserved. Reading Recovery 38
www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com
DRA 38
 Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................ 4

Blending or Concealing Coloration................. 6

Seasonal Blending .............................................. 9

Color Change .................................................... 11

Camouflage in Young Animals ...................... 13

Disguise ............................................................. 16
Chameleon
Trickery .............................................................. 17

Disruptive Coloration...................................... 20 Introduction

Flash Coloration and Other Surprises .......... 21 Most animals have enemies. In order
to survive, they have to defend themselves.
Warning Coloration ......................................... 22 Some animals use speed and strength to
How Did Camouflage Develop? ................... 24 survive. Others, like alligators, use their
powerful jaws and sharp teeth. Some, like
Summary ........................................................... 26 rattlesnakes and black widow spiders, use
Glossary ............................................................. 28 venom. Others, such as turtles, have hard
body coverings. But other animals must
rely on the color and pattern of their body
covering for survival.

Camouflage • Level T 3 4
 The use of coloring and patterns to
disguise and conceal is called camouflage.
Many kinds of animals use camouflage in
order to survive. Predators—animals that
hunt—use it to sneak up on their prey
without being seen. Prey use it to hide
from predators.
Do You Know?
A polar bear can swim up
to 60 miles without resting.

Polar bears blend in with their surroundings.

Blending or Concealing Coloration

Have you heard the joke about the student
The snake’s patterns and color can help it hide. who turned in a blank sheet of white paper
for his art project? His teacher asked him
Camouflage comes in many forms. how he could call that art. “It’s not a blank
Some animals have permanent color patterns sheet of white paper,” he replied. “It’s a polar
that help them to hide. Others have color bear in a snowstorm.” The polar bear is an
patterns that change with the seasons. Still example of blending coloration—its white fur
others have color patterns that change with blends in well with its snowy surroundings.
the surface the animal is on. And still others This gives the polar bear an advantage when
use patterns that change during different hunting. It is less visible and can sneak up
stages of life. Let’s take a look at different on seals, walruses, and other animals that
forms of camouflage. it hunts.

Camouflage • Level T 5 6
 Blending coloration is quite common in A special kind of blending can happen
nature. Many desert creatures, including when one kind of animal is found living in
snakes, lizards, and desert foxes, are the color many different places. Let’s look at earless
of sand to match their surroundings. Many lizards as an example. Earless lizards living
insects are green to blend in with the plants on the white sands of New Mexico are white.
they live and feed on. Lions match the color Other earless lizards that live nearby on black
of the dry grasslands of the African plains volcanic rock are almost black. Still other
where they live. Other big cats with color earless lizards in nearby desert areas are
patterns, such as leopards, cheetahs, and light yellow to blend well with sand.
tigers, blend in with the light and dark of
their woodland homes.

Earless
lizards

This snake’s color blends with the rocks.

Camouflage • Level T 7 8
 Arctic birds such as ptarmigans
(TAR-mi-gans) and snowy owls also change
color with the seasons. Ptarmigans start to
grow speckled brown summer coats in the
spring. The males stay white longer so that
they’re more visible to predators. While the
predators are busy chasing the more visible
male, the female hides in her nest and
warms her newly laid eggs.

Arctic foxes change color for winter and summer.

Seasonal Blending
Many animals have fur or skin that blends
in with their environment. But what do
you do when the color of your environment
changes? Some animals that live in colder
climates change color with the seasons.
Arctic hares and Arctic foxes in the far north
have brown fur in the summer and white fur
in the winter. This helps them to hide year
round. If the land around them is white,
they’re white. If it’s dark, they’re dark, too. Ptarmigans in summer and winter

Camouflage • Level T 9 10
 The octopus is also known for its ability
to change color. It can change both the color
and texture of its skin. When an octopus
moves onto a rock, it changes color to match
the rock. Its skin becomes bumpy to match
the rock’s surface.

Chameleons can change color.

Color Change
Perhaps one of the best-known examples
of color change is the chameleon. Many
people believe that chameleons change color
to hide. But most chameleons change color
to display emotions to other chameleons.
However, because many chameleons happen
to be green, brown, or gray, they are well
hidden in nature. The octopus blends in with its surroundings.

Do You Know? Crab spiders change color, too. They

Chameleons have the widest range of are able to match the color of white, pink,
or yellow flowers. They sit on flowers and
color of all the color-changing animals. They
are almost invisible until an unsuspecting
change color when they are hot, cold,
beetle, fly, or bee comes by for a sip of nectar.
frightened, angry, or in love.
The crab spider then attacks it.

Camouflage • Level T 11 12
 Young deer have spots to help them blend in with the leaves.
This white weasel blends in with the snow.

Camouflage patterns are well known

Camouflage in Young Animals
in baby deer. Similar light-colored spotting
Some animals have camouflage patterns also occurs in the young of tapirs (a hoofed
when they are young, but lose these patterns mammal) and wild boars. Topi antelopes
when they grow big and strong enough to of the African desert blend in with the sand
outrun their enemies. When young, their while they are young. When they grow
parents must leave them alone for periods strong enough to flee their enemies, they
of time to go find food. If the young are develop black markings. Even some young
camouflaged, they are less likely to be eaten predatory animals use camouflage to hide.
by a predator while their parents are away. Lion cubs have spots that help them blend in.

Camouflage • Level T 13 14
 Some animals are even camouflaged
before birth. Many animals are at risk of
being eaten when they are in the egg stage.
Birds that nest on the ground are at great risk
for having their eggs stolen when they leave
the nest. Oystercatcher eggs are the color of
pebbles along the beaches where they live.
The eggs of other ground-nesting birds
have streaks and blotches to break up the Many insects look like plant parts.
egg-shaped outline to help them blend
with their surroundings. Disguise
Disguise is another kind of camouflage.
A disguised animal looks like another animal
or object. Some of the best masters of disguise
are leaf insects and stick insects. A leaf insect
has wings that look exactly like leaves. Stick
insects look so much like sticks that it’s
almost impossible to tell the insect from
the stick that it rests on.

Some insects are the shape and color

of flowers. Tropical mantids, of which the
praying mantis is one, have bodies that look
just like orchids. They are always ready to
gobble up an insect that thinks it’s about to
Speckled eggs blend in well with the rocks. get a taste of nectar.

Camouflage • Level T 15 16
 Trickery Many predator animals will not eat an
animal that is already dead. They prefer to eat
While disguise involves the visible
only fresh meat. So many prey animals play
features of an animal, trickery involves
dead to avoid being eaten. When threatened,
behavior. Some animals try to trick or fool
a hognose snake turns upside-down and
other animals by pretending they are dead
throws back its head, holding its mouth open.
or by using some other trick.
It pretends to be dead and tricks its predator
When frightened, some chameleons lie on into leaving it alone.
the ground without moving. This behavior
causes the chameleon to look like a piece
of dead wood. Many kinds of small beetles
play dead when they are disturbed. They
fall to the ground and look like grains of soil,
fooling birds who might otherwise eat them.

Chameleon A hognose snake playing dead

Camouflage • Level T 17 18
 Disruptive Coloration
Another kind of camouflage is called
disruptive coloration. This kind of
camouflage helps to break up an animal’s
outline and hide its true shape. The stripes
of tigers and zebras are two examples of this
kind of camouflage. Two African antelopes
also have stripes that help break up their
outlines. The stripes of all these animals
blend in with shadows and make the animals
less visible.

Fireflies use light to attract mates.

Fireflies are experts at a very clever kind

of trickery. When a firefly wants to mate, it
flashes its light. Each species of firefly flashes
its own kind of signal pattern. Sometimes the
female of one species will imitate the signal
of another species to trick the males of that
species. She flashes the signal of the other
species, and when a male arrives, she eats him. Zebras have disruptive coloration.

Camouflage • Level T 19 20
 Poisonous
frog

Io moth with eyespots

Warning Coloration
Flash Coloration and Other Surprises
Other animals have bright coloring to
Until now, we’ve been talking about how warn other animals that they taste bad or
animals use color and behavior patterns to are poisonous. The bright colors remind
be less visible. But some animals survive predators of the bad experience they had the
by being more visible. Some animals escape last time they tried to eat one of these yucky
predators by startling them. Some do it by animals. Fish, frogs, snakes, and many kinds
making a sudden noise or by baring their of insects use warning coloration.
teeth. Others startle by flashing a bright color
A few animals survive simply because
at the predator. This is called flash coloration.
they look like some other bad tasting or
A related kind of camouflage involves poisonous animal. They disguise themselves
eyespots. Some moths have spots on their using the same colors, just to keep predators
wings that look like the eyes of large animals. away. Some flies and moths survive because
When the moth flashes its eyespots, this can they have black and yellow body stripes like
startle a predator and give the moth an extra stinging wasps and bees. Some also make
second or two to fly away before being eaten. a buzzing sound like a bee.

Camouflage • Level T 21 22
 A famous example of warning coloration
is the monarch butterfly, which is bright
orange and black. Monarchs taste so bad
that a bird will often vomit after eating one.
But the viceroy doesn’t taste bad. However,
it has developed similar markings to look
like the monarch. It is more likely to be left
alone by predators since it looks like the
foul-tasting monarch.

Camouflaged eggs

How Did Camouflage Develop?

Viceroy
From one generation of living things
to the next, little changes happen in physical
traits such as colors and patterns. Sometimes
when animals have babies, some of the babies
are born with slightly different features.
The difference may give this new animal an
advantage toward survival. For example, it
may be faster or have a color or pattern to
better blend with its surroundings. With such
Monarch
an advantage, this animal is more likely to
survive to produce its own babies. These
babies are likely to also have the same trait
and will be more likely to survive.

Camouflage • Level T 23 24
 An animal whose camouflage does
not work well will be eaten by a predator.
Only animals with the best traits survive
to produce offspring. Those offspring tend
to have the same traits as their parents.
In this way, the successful camouflage is
passed on from one generation to the next.

This process works for predators as well.

Predators with the best traits will be the
ones that have regular meals, stay strong,
and are more likely to survive and reproduce. The rhinoceros does not need camouflage.
Their traits then get passed on to their
offspring, who in turn are also more likely Conclusion
to survive and reproduce. Over thousands Only a few animals have no need for
of years, weak and less protected animals camouflage. These animals may have no
failed to survive. This has allowed animals natural enemies and eat plant food that
with the best traits for survival to live on cannot escape. The only threat to these
and reproduce. animals comes from humans. Land animals
such as elephants, rhinoceroses, and
hippopotamuses do not need to camouflage
themselves from natural enemies. In the
ocean, only certain huge whales that eat
plankton have no need of camouflage.
For other animals, camouflage plays an
Polar bear important role in the struggle to stay alive.

Camouflage • Level T 25 26
 Glossary
TRY THIS! blending camouflage that helps an animal
Wear neutral-colored clothing for a coloration (n.) blend in with its background (p. 6)
day. Notice how many people pay
blotches (n.) dark patches or stains (p. 15)
attention to you as you do normal
activities such as going to school or conceal (v.) to hide (p. 5)

going to a store. On another day, disguise (v.) to pretend to be something different

wear bright red clothing and do by changing appearances (p. 5)

similar activities. Notice if you get disruptive chunky patterns such as blotches or
more attention when you wear bright coloration (n.) spots that help break up the outline
colors. of an animal (p. 20)

eyespots (n.) spots that look like the eyes of a

TRY THIS!
much larger animal (p. 21)
Go out into nature with a
flash sudden, startling color that helps an
family member. Wear clothing
coloration (n.) animal escape (p. 21)
that is only shades of green or
offspring (n.) descendants (p. 25)
brown. Stand in the middle of
a wooded area and see if your predators (n.) animals that hunt and prey on (eat)
other animals (p. 5)
companion can see you from
20 paces away. Now put on prey (n.) an animal that is eaten by another
animal (p. 5)
a brightly colored T-shirt you’ve
brought with you. Stand the startle (v.) to suddenly scare (p. 21)

same distance away and see warning colors that tell other animals that an
if your companion sees you. coloration (n.) animal tastes bad or is poisonous
(p. 22)

Camouflage • Level T 27 28