Most Insane Camouflage in the World

Camouflage is essential built-in protection for surviving in the wild. Just take a close look at the following image. Can you spot the tiger in the first one? How about in the second image? This may look like a photoshop trick, but technically the tiger is both colors!

These apex predators have developed an incredibly impressive two step camouflage; to human eyes, the orange and red tones of the tiger’s pelt merge well into places like the undergrowth, but to a tiger’s favorite prey its orange pelt appears green! This is because animals such a deer and boars are dichromats.

In 2019, the Journal of the Royal Society Interface published research using a machine learning algorithm to simulate what the world looked like to dichromats. They explained how dichromats only have two types of functioning color receptors in their eyes, making them red-green blind. That’s means that to a deer, tigers blend into the green forest setting almost seamlessly!

This gives them the advantage of sneaking up close before they pounce on prey, whilst also being able to hide in the dry undergrowth where they’re most hunted by humans. This is just one amazing example how camouflage can really go beyond what you’d expect. With that in mind, lets take a look at some more of the most insane camouflage in the world.

Baron Caterpillar

It’s no surprise that nature would produce camouflage that looks the most natural! The insect in the image below, if you can make it out, is the Baron Caterpillar. They’re native to Sri Lanka, India and Southeast Asia in places where mango trees grow.

With a long white line down the back, and a perfectly green coloration, this caterpillar is able to blend right into the middle of a mango tree leaf as you can see! The lines along the feathery protrusions on its back even mimic the sprouting veins of the leaf! Blending in like this keeps it hidden from predators until its mature enough to begin metamorphosis into a butterfly.

The PL-01 Andres Invisible Tank

Here’s a question for you: how can something that weighs 35 tons, measures 23 ft long, 9 ft wide and 12 ft high also be invisible? That seems like a question only the Polish can answer, after all they designed the world’s first invisible tank!

The invisible tank PL-01 unveiled by TomoNews US

As warfare has advanced to include technological tactics, this polish super design is moving with the times. The PL-01 Andres tank is coated in a special, classified material that absorbs radio waves, making it invisible to radar technology. It also incorporates a system that lowers its exhaust temperature to fool infrared systems.

So, even though it looks like a death trap designed by Elon musk on the outside, a radar image will make you believe it’s nothing more than a regular car. All in all, this is closer to a Klingon Bird of Prey than a tank!

Leopards

Leopards are the undisputed masters of natural camouflage. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this image and spot the Leopard.

Did you find it? For those of you who need a little help, clock on the picture and zoom in. You'll find it in the narrow spot between the tree and the branch.

Still not convinced? Try and spot the Snow Leopard on the side of this mountain.

Did you see it? Look at the middle point just beside the mountain and you can spot it hidden behind the rocks.

Thanks to millions of years of evolution, leopards can merge into their surroundings effortlessly which range from bare mountainsides to thick jungles. Photographers can spend up to 3 years searching for just one glimpse of these amazing cats in the wild, reaching altitudes of 17’000 ft and temperatures of -22 degrees Fahrenheit! No wonder it takes so long to find them.

Sea Sapphire

A little-known copepod called a Sea Sapphire is an ant-sized relative of crabs and lobsters which shoots between brilliant iridescent colors and near invisibility. This is a level of camouflage most animals can only ever dream of developing! But how does it work?

The secret to the sea sapphire’s colors and invisibility by American Chemical Society

This species of copepod has microscopic layers of honeycomb shaped crystals built into its skin which sandwich sheets of cytoplasm. Depending on the spacing of these layers, light reflects differently off the backs of these animals.

When sunlight hits the shell at a 45-degree angle, the light that reflects back shifts out of the visible light spectrum into the ultraviolet, making it look like they’ve turned invisible when in reality they’ve just shifted sideways. You could say that they’re able to disappear in a flash!

Quantum Stealth

There’s camouflage, and then there’s just plain witchcraft. Take a look at this invisibility shield called "Quantum Stealth" from the company HyperStealth.

Quantum Stealth "invisibility cloak" can conceal people and entire buildings by Dezeen

The company was already a leader in traditional camouflage designs when, according to its website, the CEO and creator accidentally stumbled upon a material with a negative refractive index.

The material bends light waves around whatever it was concealing, rendering the target invisible and only displaying the background. Not only that, but it works across the entire visible and thermal spectrum, rending the subject invisible even to night vision and thermal imagers!

You’d expect something like this to be front and center of current military advancement, but the patent for this is still pending which means the design is on the back line. If JK Rowling gets her hands on it, Harry Potters invisibility cloak may be one step closer to becoming a reality!

Operation Camouflage

It’s been established that concealing a person, animal or vehicle is totally possible, but what about an entire factory? Just after the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor during World War Two, Aircraft manufacturers Lockheed gathered at their Burbank aircraft plant to discuss concealment techniques.

Terrified the war could further breach the shorelines of America, Colonel Ohmer gave the order to conceal the plant by any means necessary. Operation Camouflage began: The plants’ parking lots were painted green and lined with foliage, fake trees were set up with chicken feathers for leaves, and a canopy of chicken wire netting was erected over the main factory with painted canvas.

From the air, the entire plant was transformed into an unsuspecting Californian suburb. Even today, it remains one of the most extensive and successful concealment operations in history. You could say it was hidden in "plane" sight.

Dazzle Painting Camouflage

Old images of the First World War paint a fairly grim and serious picture of the time. Battleships and U-boats appear incredibly menacing, except that wasn’t always the case. The boat in the picture below may look like they’ve been dressed up as zebras on LSD, but they’re actually in a form of camouflage called Dazzle Painting.

It consists of complex geometric patterns which intersect and interrupt one another. You may be thinking that this is the opposite of camouflage but the point of this wasn’t to conceal the ship, it was to confuse the enemy.

Negating shadows and distorting perspective, ships became harder to judge in terms of their range, heading and speed. This meant enemy ships attempting to engage a Dazzled ship in battle often took up the wrong position and missed difficult long-range attacks. Plus, no two ships were ever painted the same keeping the ships identity and class a secret.

Cuttlefish

Being able to blend into your surroundings is very impressive, but the Cuttlefish takes it to the next level in the image below. It’s not just its color that changes, but the texture of its skin and posture of its tentacles perfectly mimic its surroundings!

Cuttlefish are cephalopods, making it part of the same family that octopus and squid come from. In their skin they carry chromatophores, which are little sacks of pigment attached to small circular muscles. Electrical activity from the brain is thought to be linked to these chromatophores, so the Cuttlefish can adjust its color to its environment and synchronize its muscle’s movements within milliseconds!

What’s even more interesting about this whole process is that cephalopods are color blind. Despite extensive research, humans are still perplexed by how this mysterious family of sea creatures manages to turn their bodies into incredibly accurate camouflage, even though they can’t technically see color. It should be impossible to show off this much when you’re camouflaged!

Leafy Sea Dragon

Take a good look at the crazy camouflage of the Leafy Sea Dragon in the clip below. Whilst they’re closely related to sea horses, the main difference is that this little fish sports incredible leaflike appendages that let it drift unsuspectingly alongside seaweed and kelp.

Crazy Camouflage Leafy Sea Dragon's by madfishdiving

The design of these incredible leafy sprouts develops when the sea dragon is young, but once it reaches adulthood it’s believed that neither prey nor predators recognize it as a fish. That means its camouflage technique is so constantly effective it doesn’t have any predators!

Observation Posts of WW1

Life in the trenches of World War one was treacherous and terrifying. Any man brave enough to stick his head out from the safety of the ditch for more than a few seconds was often spotted and shot.

So how were they meant to keep tabs on their enemy when everything above ground was compromised? The answer was to get creative. The French began the ingenious endeavor of disguising observation posts as trees.

A dead tree blasted by bombs near a trench was meticulously studied, photographed and measured. At night, shielded by the darkness, the tree was taken down and replaced with an identical, hollow version made from chicken wire, bulletproof shutters and canvas.

The base was sunk into the ground to prevent detection from aircraft above, and a small ladder inside lead up to very top giving the soldier completely safe vision of the enemy trench. That camouflage certainly gets to the root of the problem!

Mirrorcube

If you want a camouflage solution that works all year round, you need to think outside the box, specifically this box in the clip below!

Treehotel - Mirror Cube by Treehotel

The Mirrorcube is a reflective glass covered treehouse in the Swedish wilderness. It’s designed as a non-intrusive hotel that preserves the areas breath-taking nature no matter what time of the year it is. And at the right angle, it blends into the forest seamlessly. So, if you decide to stay here for a staggering $517 per night, try not to forget where it is!

HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen

Camouflage for ships was widely used in the first and second world wars, but the crew of the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen turned the concept of camouflage into a full-blown disguise.

In 1942, this Dutch minesweeper ship was in the middle of Java Sea, which was then occupied by the invading Japanese forces. The sea and skies were full of the enemy, and in order to escape they needed to sail through 1600 kilometers of hostile ocean.

It seemed impossible, until the captain came up with a plan which was as ingenious as it was mad, to disguise the boat as a tropical island! The crew used foliage from nearby islands to whip up a makeshift jungle on the 180 ft long vessel, along with grey paint to make portions of the hull look like a rockface.

To ensure it didn’t draw too much attention, the boat sailed only at night and prayed the Japanese took no notice of this weirdly new, unassuming little island. After eight days of navigating thousands of tiny islands around Indonesia, the ship entered friendly waters completely undetected. The Crijnssen became the only Dutch vessel of its class to escape the Java Sea during World War 2. I’m amazed the ship didn’t sink with the size of that captains’ stones!

If you were amazed at these insane camouflage, you might want to read about animals with super camouflage! Thanks for reading.