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

They don’t do it by conscious choice.

It’s a result of survivorship bias.

If there’s a brown rabbit and a white rabbit living in a place full of patchy, yellowish grass and exposed dirt… the white one sticks out.

Therefore, the white ones get eaten more often because they’re easier to find.

Over time, the white ones become so bad at reproducing because of their limited numbers, that the white genes basically disappear. That leaves only brown rabbits in that area.

And they are camouflaged for the surroundings.

It’s not “how do they develop camouflage”, it’s camouflage happens because camouflaged individuals survive.

People always say evolution is “survival of the fittest” implying that survival is a competition, but it really boils down to “the fittest given the conditions survive”.