How do animals develop camouflage, when they don’t know what other animals see?

Question

I’ve always admired the patterns of tigers, leopards, mantis shrimp, butterflies, etc. But I’ve always wondered how and why they become like that.

In: 6

Answer 1

Evolution “rewards” mutations that improve the animal’s ability to predate or avoid predation. It does not know or care how the mutation does this, only that individuals with the mutation reproduce better on average than individuals without it.

Evolution is not a consciously directed process. There are [plants whose flowers mimic particular species of bee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_mimicry#Interspecific_deceptive_mimicry), for instance. They do not have minds and understand the appearance of bees, but instead are responding to an environment where appearing to be a bee queen makes them more likely to be pollinated.