Blending In and Standing Out

Coloration in animals is interesting to me.  I'm not thinking about it from the genetics standpoint, but from the way it helps them to blend into their surroundings.  Take this white calf for instance; from a genetics standpoint his mother was black and daddy was white (dominant genetically), but from a blending in standpoint he looks like you could spot him a mile away.  Did you notice the one behind him in the photo?  There is another one just as white standing in the shade and blending in nicely with the trees and grasses.

We also have some black calves.  They are from our Fall calving herd.  They have black mothers and black fathers.  From a genetics standpoint, it's an easy one; from a coloration standpoint, you'd think they would also be easy to spot.  Not so!  Even in the open pasture with nothing around but grass, they will lie in the deep grasses and flatten their head to the ground and at a distance, if you can see them at all, might look like a "cow patty" (manure pile).  When in the shadows, they completely disappear.

There have been times when we headed out to check cattle and had to hunt pretty hard to find them because they were lying in the shade somewhere.  From a distance they just looked like shadows.

The amazing thing to me is that the same coloration that makes the animal highly visible in some cases makes them virtually invisible in others.  When you think about that within the framework of the predator-prey relationships of animals it makes sense.  The adult prey animals, such as cattle, sometimes need to be highly visible in order to attract the attention of predators away from their more vulnerable young.

There are times that I am trying to get a good count on new babies and have to search pretty hard to find them.  The mothers will "plant" the babies in cover somewhere then go off to graze or to find water.  I also think they deliberately leave them at a distance (but within their sight) to teach them the discipline of remaining hidden in cover.  It is instinctual and programmed into their genetics to do so.  As I am searching for the babies I keep my eye on the cows.  Sometimes one will give indication that I am getting close to her hidden calf through her behavior.  It is often greater attentiveness or an "act" of calling and moving in a different direction as if searching for her calf.  If I appear to be a threat to the baby she will often come at a run in order to protect.  Sometimes she brings "friends" along too.

When I think about the predators, though, I see something slightly different.  Most of them seem to have a coloration that helps them to blend into almost any natural color scheme.  They are typically some combination of gray, black and tan that is of a pattern natural to their native environment.  Leopards are spotted in a way that mimics the pattern of leaf shadows.  Lions are the color of dried grasses.  Polar bears are as white as the snowy landscape in which they live.

Watching animals teaches me a lot about people....