Disruptive coloration

Disruptive coloration (also known as disruptive camouflage or disruptive patterning) is a form of camouflage that works by breaking up the outlines of an animal, soldier or military vehicle with a strongly contrasting pattern. It is often combined with other methods of crypsis including background colour matching and countershading; special cases are coincident disruptive coloration and the disruptive eye mask seen in some fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. It appears paradoxical as a way of not being seen, since disruption of outlines depends on high contrast, so the patches of colour are themselves conspicuous.

The importance of high-contrast patterns for successful disruption was predicted in general terms by the artist Abbott Thayer in 1909 and explicitly by the zoologist Hugh Cott in 1940. Later experimental research has started to confirm these predictions. Disruptive patterns work best when all their components match the background.

While background matching works best for a single background, disruptive coloration is a more effective strategy when an animal or a military vehicle may have a variety of backgrounds.

Conversely, poisonous or distasteful animals that advertise their presence with warning coloration (aposematism) use patterns that emphasize rather than disrupt their outlines. For example, skunks, salamanders and monarch butterflies all have high-contrast patterns that display their outlines.

Wood frog among fallen leaves.

Leopard: a disruptively camouflaged (and countershaded) predator

A ptarmigan and five chicks with exceptional disruptive camouflage

Jumping spider: a disruptively camouflaged invertebrate predator

"Shape, shine, shadow"^[29] make these "camouflaged" military vehicles easily visible, their outlines not disrupted

A British Challenger 2 tank painted in bold disruptive pattern of sand and green

The banded butterflyfish, Chaetodon striatus, has strong disruptive bands through the body and concealing the eye.

USS Alabama wearing Measure 12 ship camouflage during World War II

Disruptively camouflaged A-7D Corsairs on a disruptively painted concrete surface, Thailand, 1972

(1940). Adaptive Coloration in Animals. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cott, Hugh B.

; Thayer, Gerald H. (1909). Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom. New York: Macmillan. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.57368.

Thayer, Abbott H.

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