The giant panda is cryptic

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is an iconic mammal, but the function of its black-and-white coloration is mysterious. Using photographs of giant pandas taken in the wild and state-of-the-art image analysis, we confirm the counterintuitive hypothesis that their coloration provides camouflage in their natural environment. The black fur blends into dark shades and tree trunks, whereas white fur matches foliage and snow when present, and intermediate pelage tones match rocks and ground. At longer viewing distances giant pandas show high edge disruption that breaks up their outline, and up close they rely more on background matching. The results are consistent across acuity-corrected canine, feline, and human vision models. We also show quantitatively that the species animal-to-background colour matching falls within the range of other species that are widely recognised as cryptic. Thus, their coloration is an adaptation to provide background matching in the visual environment in which they live and simultaneously to afford distance-dependent disruptive coloration, the latter of which constitutes the first computational evidence of this form of protective coloration in mammals.

Relationships of diversity and evenness in adaptation strategies of the effect of protective coloration of animals

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the diversity and uniformity of the protective coloration of animals. The protective coloration of animals is the result of the formation of adaptation strategies. The aim of this study is to identify the colorimetric parameters that characterize the adaptive properties of the protective coloration of animals in relation to their natural habitat. The relevance of this study is related to the importance of the tasks of remote collection of information about various biological species; in particular, animals that carry dangerous infections. This is all the more important in light of the current epidemic problems facing humanity. The revealed colorimetric characteristics can be used to describe digital images and their further recognition. They can be classifying features in machine learning algorithms. We give an example of digital image processing of a duck (Anas platyrhynchos). The analysis of the distribution of the found colorimetric parameter makes it possible to identify the image segments corresponding to the Anas platyrhynchos. The results thus obtained are also of interest from the point of view of the problem of the adaptive role of the diversity of biological systems in relation to the problem of the mechanisms of functioning of the protective coloration of animals.

Mathematical modeling of the protective coloration of animals with usage of parameters of diversity and evenness

Adaptive mechanisms performing at different levels of organization of living matter play an important role in theoretical biology. One of the important cases of such mechanisms is the protective coloration of animals, that masks them on the ground.The article aims at building mathematical models of the performance of the protective coloration of animals, depending on the specific situations of their adaptation to a particular area. The results of the study can be used to create remote technologies for detecting animals of certain species at a considerable distance.

Disruptive camouflage

Disruptive camouflage involves using coloration to hinder detection or recognition of an object’s outline, or other conspicuous features of its body. This involves using coloration to create ‘false’ edges that make the ‘true’ interior and exterior edges used by visual predators to find and recognize prey less apparent. Disruptive camouflage can therefore be thought of as a manipulation of the signal-to-noise ratio that depends on features of the perceptual processing of receivers. This chapter discusses the multiple mechanisms via which disruptive camouflage is thought to influence visual processing, from edge detection, through perceptual grouping, and then on to object recognition processing. This receiver-centred approach—rather than a prey-phenotype-centred approach—aims to integrate disruption within the sensory ecology of predator–prey interactions. We then discuss the taxonomic, ecological, and behavioural correlates of disruptive camouflage strategies, work on the relationship between disruption and other forms of protective coloration, and review the development of approaches to quantifying disruption in animals.

A Mathematical Model of the Effect of Natural Selection on Adaptation Forms that Implemented by disruptive coloration of Taurotragus oryx

In the study, results of mathematical modelling of the influence of natural selection on performance of various forms of animal adaptation to habitat conditions are presented. For a formalized description of the subject of study, we used a new class of mathematical models— discrete models of dynamical systems. Sets of strategies of protective coloration of antelopes Taurotragus oryx are the subject of a formalized description. Various combinations of brightness of green and red components of gray-brown non-uniform protective coloration of different parts of the silhouette of these animals were considered as such strategies. The sets based on the material of digital pictures of the two groups of Taurotragus oryx were compared. The first group includes antelopes Taurotragus oryx from Serengeti National Park (Tanzania) exposed to natural selection. The second group includes Taurotragus oryx, actually domesticated in Askania-Nova reserve (Ukraine), for which natural selection is not active. The sets of above mention strategies-combinations, modelled for the two groups, were compared by the numbers of unique combinations of values of brightness of red and green colours, as well as combinations with closest values of these brightness. The adaptive role of combinations with different values of red and green colours was identified with the role of idioadaptations. The adaptive role of combinations with equal values of red and green colours was identified with a more wide performance of aromorphoses. In this connection, the notions “quasi-idioadaptation” and “quasi-aromorphosis” were introduced in the paper.It is assumed that both quasi-aromorphoses and quasi-idiadaptations, in certain conditions, contribute to the destruction of an integral visual perception of the silhouette of an animal against a many-coloured background of vegetation. At that, assumed that an adaptation function of a quasi-aromorphosis can be implemented in a wider range of colorimetric parameters of a plant background. The results of modelling indicate that the coloration of Taurotragus oryx from Serengeti is characterized by a larger set of quasi-adaptations than coloration of Taurotragus oryx from Askania-Nova. In the coloration of the latter, there is no quasi-aromorphosis with maximum values of brightness of both red and green components. But there exists a quasi-aromorphosis in the coloration of Taurotragus oryx from Serengeti. Such results of mathematical modelling correspond to prevailing ideas about the influence of natural selection on the character of adaptive reactions of living beings.