Disruptive coloration in the context of "Camouflage"

Aircraft camouflage is the use of camouflage on military aircraft to make them more difficult to see, whether on the ground or in the air. Given the possible backgrounds and lighting conditions, no single scheme works in every situation. A common approach has been a form of countershading, the aircraft being painted in a disruptive pattern of ground colours such as green and brown above, sky colours below. For faster and higher-flying aircraft, sky colours have sometimes been used all over, while helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft used close to the ground are often painted entirely in ground camouflage. Aircraft flying by night have often been painted black, but this actually made them appear darker than the night sky, leading to paler night camouflage schemes. There are trade-offs between camouflage and aircraft recognition markings, and between camouflage and weight. Accordingly, visible light camouflage has been dispensed with when air superiority was not threatened or when no significant aerial opposition was anticipated.

Aircraft were first camouflaged during World War I; aircraft camouflage has been widely employed since then. In World War II, disruptive camouflage became widespread for fighters and bombers, sometimes combined with countershading. Some air forces such as the German Luftwaffe varied their paint schemes to suit differing flight conditions such as the skyglow over German cities, or the sands of the Mediterranean front.

Motion camouflage is camouflage which provides a degree of concealment for a moving object, given that motion makes objects easy to detect however well their coloration matches their background or breaks up their outlines.

The principal form of motion camouflage, and the type generally meant by the term, involves an attacker's mimicking the optic flow of the background as seen by its target. This enables the attacker to approach the target while appearing to remain stationary from the target's perspective, unlike in classical pursuit (where the attacker moves straight towards the target at all times, and often appears to the target to move sideways). The attacker chooses its flight path so as to remain on the line between the target and some landmark point. The target therefore does not see the attacker move from the landmark point. The only visible evidence that the attacker is moving is its looming, the change in size as the attacker approaches.

Coincident disruptive coloration or coincident disruptive patterns are patterns of disruptive coloration in animals that go beyond the usual camouflage function of breaking up the continuity of an animal's shape, to join up parts of the body that are separate. This is seen in extreme form in frogs such as Afrixalus fornasini where the camouflage pattern extends across the body, head, and all four limbs, making the animal look quite unlike a frog when at rest with the limbs tucked in.

A special case is the disruptive eye mask that camouflages the most conspicuous feature of many animals, the eye.

Disruptive eye masks are camouflage markings that conceal the eyes of an animal from its predators or prey. They are used by prey, to avoid being seen by predators, and by predators to help them approach their prey.

The eye has a distinctive shape and dark coloration dictated by its function, and it is housed in the vulnerable head, making it a natural target for predators. It can be camouflaged by a suitable disruptive pattern arranged to run up to or through the eye, sometimes forming a camouflage eyestripe. The illusion is completed in some animals by a false eye or false head somewhere else on the body, in a form of automimicry.

Camouflage is the concealment of animals or objects of military interest by any combination of methods that helps them to remain unnoticed. This includes the use of high-contrast disruptive patterns as used on military uniforms, but anything that delays recognition can be used as camouflage. Camouflage involves deception, whether by looking like the background or by resembling something else, which may be plainly visible to observers. This article lists methods used by animals and the military to escape notice.