Camouflage and Mimicry

Name: Lindsey
About Me: I am in love with Keith Urban and he is my future husband. I am eighteen and I will be going to K-State University next year to study Veterinary Medicine. I went to Mahaffie Elementary School and after that Santa Fe Trail Junior High.
I drive a red Honda Civic and it's a manual transmission. I played softball for North for three years and volleyball freshman year for SFT.

********************Camouflage*******************
Camouflage is an animals ability to visibly blend in with it's environment. Camouflage is a form of deception and allows animals to hide from their predators safely. Some animals can do this by simply by blending into their environment, while others are able to actually change their color so they can match any surrounding environment.

-Chameleons-
There are eighty species of chameleons whom are all highly aggressive and brightly colored. They have a ridge on the top of their heads and can get as tall as two inches by the time the animal is mature. Their eyes are also interesting because they are able to move separately and can look in two directions at once. This allows the animal to follow prey without moving its head.
Chameleons reside in the trees and have special hands that allow them to grasp the branch of the tree so they don't fall off. Their hands are similar to a humans because they contain fingers, but also differ because the fingers are fused together at the middle. Besides having these fingers to keep them from falling off the tree, a chameleon also has a prehensile tail that they can use to hold on and keep their balance.

When it comes to color changes, the chameleon is the best. A chameleon not only changes color to blend into its surroundings, it also does this to show its emotional state. Most of the time green and brown signify a chameleon at rest, and a more brightly colored chameleon is usually frightened or defending its territory. They also turn dark colors when they are threatened and playing dead.


-American Toad-
The American Toad is a medium sized toad and can grow to be 3.5 inches long. They have spots and contain up to two warts on them. They can also secrete a type of mild poison that can irritate human skin.
Out of all the types of toads out there, the American Toad has a good way of camouflaging it self and its eggs. The toad itself can be several different colors, ranging from brown to red to olive and gray. All of these colors help the toad blend in with its surroundings, such as trees and leaves.
Besides camouflaging itself, the American Toad also lays special eggs that blend in with the water so they are less susceptible to being eaten. When being looked at from the top, the eggs are a dark almost black color that allows them to blend in with the bottom of the pond; from the bottom, the eggs are a whitish color so they are not in plain sight of the fish below.


-CHEETAH-
The cheetah is the fastest animal on land. They can run up to 78 mph, which comes in handy when they are hunting. They weigh any where from 90 to 140 pounds and can be up to 55 inches long. Cheetahs also have large nostrils, hearts, and lungs that allow them to take in larger amounts of oxygen while running.

Even though these animals are able to run very fast, they can only maintain that speed for 500 yards, so while they are waiting for prey to get closer they need to be unseen. They are able to do this because of their specially colored coat. They are a base color of tan and on top of that are black round spots. This coloration allows them to blend in with the tall grasses that they lay in while waiting for prey to come along.



***********************Mimicry********************

Mimicry is a situation in which an animal acts like another in order to scare predators away.

-Walking Sticks-
There are over 3,000 different types of walking sticks which are mostly found in tropical regions all over the world. They are very laid back insects and spend most of their time hanging from leaves and branches in trees. When they are not hanging around, they are probably eating. They usually eat berries, cherries, and certain types of leaves.
Walking sticks use mimicry and are one of the best at it. A walking stick mimics a stick so other animals cannot tell that it is actually an insect. It is very hard to tell a walking stick from a real stick, which is a pain for someone who is looking for one, but extremely good for the insect itself.

When a walking stick loses a leg or gets hurt it has the ability to regenerate the limb that it lost. After the insect has molted, or shedded, its skin a couple times the lost limb grows back. The walking stick also uses its molt as food after it has been shedded. It serves as a good source of food and goes unwasted.

-Milk Snake-
Milk snakes are found in many different countries and can grow 24 to 36 inches long. They are a species of the king snake and there are 25 different subspecies of milk snakes, but they all look very different.
Milk snakes are multicolored and consist of red, yellow, and black. Just by catching a glimpse of them so might think them to be the highly venomous Coral Snake. The reason for the Milk snake being these particular colors is for that reason exactly.
They are a small snake and don't really have another defense, so they take advantage of their color and use it to drive potential predators away.



*Websites*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactSheets/
Veiledchameleon.cfm
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bufo_americanus.html
http://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us/4TH/KKHP/1INSECTS/walkingstick.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_toad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_snake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chameleon