Abstract
The color patterns of most animals are enormously important to their lives. Colors may serve as intraspecific signals and are sometimes involved in the control of body temperature. Much more often, however, the color pattern helps the animal to escape predation. Perhaps the majority of animals are cryptic in appearance and behavior and thus tend to avoid the notice of predators. Many moths, for example, are camouflaged, blending into the background when they rest during the day on the bark of a tree (Kettlewell, 1955, 1956). A disruptive pattern (e.g., the white bands on the wings of “admiral” butterflies) may contribute to camouflage by breaking up the animal’s outline (Cott, 1957).
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Waldbauer, G.P. (1988). Aposematism and Batesian Mimicry. In: Hecht, M.K., Wallace, B., Prance, G.T. (eds) Evolutionary Biology. Evolutionary Biology, vol 22. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0931-4_5
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