I saw pictures of a praying mantis, that was supposed to look like a leaf. It was scary how accurate it resembled a green leaf. How does the DNA of a bug, know what a leaf looks like?
In: Biology
It doesn’t. If you put that bug somewhere it wasn’t camouflaged, it’s not like it’ll change
The camouflage comes from evolutionary pressure. A species of mantis tends to live around a certain kind of flower because they attract prey.
Mantises with color or features that blend in are seen by prey less easily, so over many many generations, that colors and features get more pronounced. This is because the ones that have those features get more prey and live longer, producing more offspring which share those features.
Do this for millions of years and you get insects which have insanely convincing camouflage traits. They never tried to do it, it just happened because it helped them live longer.
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