pretty sure the darkening is due to the sun's harmful rays. having more pigment or darkness prevents harmful rays from preventing the body preventing DNA deconstruction and mutation!
you should watch that latest Vsauce short on contrast illusion and combine efforts. Just sayin. Yall coulda had something magical here with each other's research and like a couple hours over zoom.
Looking only at the title of the video, I thought the question would be "Why do so many animals have a head, torso, and four appendages (with possibly a tail)?
Same, that’s what I was expecting and and then he throws the curveball of lighter underside. Now I’m more curious why 4 limbed animals (advanced/vertebrates) are by far the overwhelming majority. Like even the animals that seem to only have two useful limbs also have two vestigial limbs.
@@monhi64 All mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds evolved from a single tetrapod ancestor. The majority of the animal kingdom's species actually have more or less legs (e.g. insects), but the tetrapods are certainly the largest land animals so we're more familiar with them.
@@monhi64 having for 4 limbs (with specific orientation of knees and elbows) helps moving around your environment to escape predators or get food. Also explain why land mammals have a neck.
In birds, it's thought that the counter-shading helps them remain hidden in flight. The darker top hides them from falcons or other birds of prey that would swoop down from above, blending them in with the ground, while the lighter belly hides them from their own prey that watches for them, blending them in with the sky.
Counter shadowing definitely works. I have a dog and he is a Border Collie crossed with a Labrador and he has a gorgeous coat of mostly black fur with white paws and a white chest and belly. When he's in the garden at night, or lying in the hall at the top of the stairs with the light out you can only really see his paws because of that contrast and if he lies a certain way in the dark then it's literally impossible to see him at all and you wind up tripping up over him. So in conclusion it works for the domestic dog so they can confuse and trip up owners.
My parents dog is part black lab with some light grey on her belly and muzzle from the blue tick coonhound in her. When she lays down on the floor at night she's invisible with the lights off, such a tripping hazard. (I learned to walk slowly and without picking my feet up above the level of her body for both our protection) Sometimes she's loud at night, and other times she will silently follow you and lay infront of the bathroom door so you trip on her as you leave. (Presumably unintentionally, she likes to be close to people)
we used to have a rottweiler which would lay underneath my dad's desk and due to the shadows and his dark coat the only thing you could see was his eyes. Every time I came home and would look around for him I would walk into my dad's office and peek beneath the desk to find him and just see a pair of eyes staring back at me.
I have a pet upside-down catfish which likes to spend its time upside-down as the name suggests, its got a dark belly and light back. So countershading obviously does something important because compared to its close relatives in the same genus that dont swim like weirdos its shading is reversed.
@@Beryllahawk Actually it just feels wrong more than anything. It hides most of the time but comes out the instant it smells food, it is a ravenous and greedy little guy. Synodontis nigriventris is the species name in Latin if you wanted to know. they are rather easy to care for and common in the pet trade since they breed readily. Just be carful since they can outcompete other fish for food.
@@Exquailibur Gotta admit most of the fish I handled growing up were tetras and mollies. The coolest fish we ever had, had to have a tank to himself because he would've eaten all the others. An Oscar, I think is what my stepfather said he was. But this was also a fish with Big Opinions and we could "play fetch" with him by dropping a d20 in the tank. He'd catch it and spit it out and 10 year old me thought that was the funniest thing... I no longer have the means or fortitude to keep fish but they still interest me! And TBH, ravenous and greedy fits right in with most catfish from what I've seen
@@O.Generico I believe it's more of an all-around protection(against heat, dirt, water, bacteria etc. etc.), because we also have hair in our nose, around our eyes, in our armpits(that in my opinion has zero purpose in any way), and in the crotch.
Ever since I've learned kitefin sharks are the largest bioluminescent vertebrates, I've been fascinated by the concept of counterillumination. Was really neat to see it mentioned.
Wow, I had no idea that countershading was so common in the animal kingdom! This video really opened my eyes to the amazing ways animals have adapted to their environments.
4:54 countershading definitely does keep animals from being spotted, in fact, it makes their topsides one colour and their middles and bottoms others! Those aren’t spots!
@@lordhegamonster6931 too bad! They’re still counter shaded under their spots! 😉 And I said “keeps animals from” not “makes spots on amnimals impawssible”
Interesting idea. I've noticed countershading in fish as it was more obvious that it helps blend in against any background but I've never thought about it in land animals. At the beginning I thought it would be the same explanation but surely animals on land don't have predators that look at them from below or above so that threw me for a loop.
While most land animals don't have predators looking up at them (not counting crocodiles lurking in the water), many have to deal with birds of prey or ambushes from cats in trees, so that means being watched from above. Although all of these prey species have to worry about conventional land predators who only view them from the side. (Assuming level ground and same head height)
Fun fact, almost all of these designs were used in war to varying effects. Counter shading is the most common, getting used on planes and ships (and similar concepts to the fish and birds, airplanes were often designed to blend in with the ground when seen from above, and sky from below). Virtually every variant of colours, whether just to eliminate shadows or to actually match colours with ground/sky were tried. Counter illumination was used on some canadian warships, although it was used in ww2 in limited numbers. When it worked it could reduce the ships visibility by others up to 70%. Unfortunately it was expensive, complicated, and the lights were too fragile and often too slow to change. Allied victory in the battle of the atlantic lead to increased control over the atlantic, less risk for convoys (and hence less need for camoflauge), and she was already being obsoleted by sonar and aircraft carriers - all of those things combining to mean it wasn't worth the money to continue development. America did briefly experiment with counter illumination of aircraft after the canadian project fell apart. And although it was promising, again radar meant that it was obsolete, and it was dropped. Zebra esque ships were designed to make judging their size, speed, and direction more difficult to make hitting them more difficult. However, the efficacy was limited at best, and made them more visible and more likely to get destroyed at worst.
In a lot of songbirds the female will blend in with the background, but the male will be brightly colored in order to draw away a predator. As someone that has lived in a rural area most their life, and has Hunted quite a bit, I can understand how the color patterns do hide animals. Great concept.
I can't help but think those cases probably commonly end up doubling as a mate selection display. Showing off just how brightly coloured you are and yet that you have survived suggests a degree of tenaciousness that could itself be an asset in a mate. It would suggest that not only are they well adapted to protect their mate and their offspring but also to live and return to continue to provide for them too. Those that were too slow or weak with such a colour scheme are likely to have already been weeded out before mating age so if the females were biologically prone to prefer the bright colours in a mate they would be more likely to select the males that also happened to be stronger, faster, and hardier too. After all this would be far from the only example in biology where a trait was adapted to pull double duty.
@@seraphina985 100% agree. The bright colors not only attract the female but pull away predators. Like I stated I live in a rural area, so I watch this dance Every Spring and it is beautiful to watch. Dang, this reminds me, I need to get my hummingbird feeders up. Thanks Smarter Everyday, and commenter I can't remember the name of as I wasn't even thinking about it till now.
You saying male birds are colorful to draw away predators sound silly. One reason, is they use that to attract mates. Some female birds are colorful too. So you're saying female birds are colorful to draw away predators too? What about colorful fish, reptitles, amphibians, bright yellow baby chickens or ducklings, or even humans like ones with orange hair?
Counter shading was also used to camouflage military aircraft during WWII: the upper surfaces of an aircraft were painted to match the environment they were expected to fly over, while the lower surfaces were painted in much lighter colors to reduce their contrast against the much brighter sky
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
@@xavierxrc I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
Yeah it's super distracting I'm listening to it on my Samsung Galaxy pro earbuds and the popping and clicking is really pronounced. Something is definitely up with the audio in this particular video
When i had to draw an underwater piece i actually realized how hard it is do paint noticeable fishes. I have searched online but most of the fishes are actually blend in with the ocean so well its merely different from painting sea with different reflections.
I feel like this highlights the importance of viewing a problem from completely different perspectives. I love how it was an artist, not a scientist, who came up with the solution!
I do believe most animals are camouflaged by default unless the benefit of whatever reduces their camouflage outweighs the downside of no longer being camouflaged.
@@CAMSLAYER13 agreed. If you look at it objectively, without photo editing, tigers, an animal we'd consider quite striking, are incredibly well camouflaged in their natural habitats. Wild cats in general are hard to even spot a few hundred feet away if they're still. You'd never know they were there unless you subconsciously picked up on the fact you were being watched. They're incredibly well camouflaged despite the fact if you put them in a white room that they're striking in appearance.
Just one of those things where if it gives you an even minor but clear advantage, you're gonna live longer, that trait will be passed on. Coloration of fur, skin, scales, etc, is something that can change in only a few generations so that adaptation taking over very rapidly makes sense
Hey "Be Smart" please keep uploadin! You have grown my interest in science so much! And broadened it to all the sciences, not just physics! Keep it up!
2:49 for anyone wanting to see the other duck. Reverse Image search the higher definition and bigger version on wiki. Save to photos, go to edit, change the “noise reduction” to zero. I you evenly divide the entire image into 4 sections by with 1 line vertically down the middle and 1 horizontally across the middle. Crop the image so you are just left with the top left part. So you will still have the visible duck in frame. The other duck is literally right above the one you can see. It’s facing the opposite direction. You will see the outline of the entire duck as well as its beak with 2 black nostrils and its eye. It’s confusing because the wiki description says the other duck is on the right, which is technically true but it literally only ever so slightly to the right, but it makes you think that it should be somewhere in the large empty space when both ducks are pretty much near each other. The other one looks like a real duck btw.
Thanks for verifying there is a black duck. I feel like this picture is such BS, the black duck should be as easy to spot as the white duck is when turned upside down. This isn't countershading, it's just perfect shading.
One of the fascinating things about camouflage I saw was last summer in August / September on Greenland. Around a rock we found lapland longspurs and northern wheatears. We could the birds fly in the air. But even when we watched them land on rocks or the ground, just around the time they landed they disappeared and it wasn't easy to spot them again.
Thanks for the great subtitles. As a second language English speaker this is really appreciated. Ps could you do a video about the coats of cats? I've heard that the reason tuxedo cats exist is due to something that happens with pigment during meiosis.
There is a theory that white markings are somehow connected to domestification. Even fish get them, and on the other hand, it isn't present in wild nature
I stumbled upon countershading on my own while drawing. I was coloring a animal with a lighter belly and was getting frustrated that when I added the shadows, the belly and back were the same color.
Great video again, Joe. I wish you would have emphasized that our eyes are NOT the default. Every species sees the world differently through their own eyes. Some see more infrared while others see ultraviolet. Please look into how different birds and fish look when put under an ultraviolet light. To our eyes, a male and female bird may look idential, but when you put them under ultraviolet light, you can see different patterns between them.
Something that might play into the abundance of countershading is the relative low energy intensiveness and simple way of evolving such a pattern. Since pigments are produced anyways (I assume) and there's no evolutionary pitfall on the way to the new coloration. (Meaning no disadvantage in the middle steps of getting the new pattern.)
I'm sure there are some energy cost differences between different pigments, but the real evolutionary cost of going between patterns is the pattern itself. (Being halfway between 2 camouflages may be worse than fully commiting to just one. Most of our domesticated pet's weird patterns are recessive genes that normally are selected against in nature but are selected for by humans because we find them cute, just as an example of how the patern itself has a cost.) But in general i agree with you that adjusting coloration patterns is probably an evolutionarily cheap adjustment vs say development of flight.
At first before watching I assumed it had to do with animals using coloring for all kinds of purposes such as attracting mates, warning predators, etc. And that having coloring on the underside, for land animals at least, is somewhat useless since those sides aren't seen.
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
Very underrated thumbnail & title. Took me hours to figure out what common trait that creature shares with the rest of the animal kingdom, felt kinda dumb when I realized afterwards that the arrows are pointing right to it 😅
I remember studying this in zoology class in college, but we only focused on aquatic animals. Edit: Brilliant really is awesome! (Totally recommend) I'm taking a math course on it right now. Skillshare is good too, I'm taking a drawing course on there.
I actually learned about countershading when I joined the military. I only learned about it being learned from animals because I had a really well-educated Drill Sergeant.
This is an example of convergent evolution, btw. Just like how evolution keeps producing crabs like body plan, it also produces counter shaded colouring.
@@ryanwester2559 I tried unfocussing my gaze just a little bit and I THINK I might have seen the outline: it's very close to the visible one, on the close right. But I agree with OP: there's also some pattern at work there.
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
I'm surprised they didn't use a negative example from lightless places like a sealed cave to support that countershading is an evolution dealing with visible light. Was glad they talked about penguins using it for heat as a measurable flaw in the hypothesis. They could also have mentioned how polar bears are essentially one color to blend into arctic coloring to further address monochromatic animals as well. Totally expected a video on bilateral symmetry and why things have heads.
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
Omg my cats dog and snake have this shading thing going on - never really opened my brain to it. Wow ! Black backs white tummy red back white tummy. How fascinating.. will be noting it everywhere from now on
It's there on the right. We can't see it because not only it proved the theory.... It's also an old picture taken in 1917, with old camera. So the quality kind of "help" it to camouflage it even more.
I didn’t even realize that mantis was a bug at first I was just like “did that flower just eat that fly? I’ve never seen a carnivorous plant move that fast” and then I flipped back and processed what was going on lol
1:41 Starting from this point onwards the audio gets distorted like speaking while dropping pebbles or something, very noticeable when you wear headphones.
So cool! Nature is awesome. I had heard a little bit about countershading but not to this extent, and I CERTAINLY didn't know counterillumination was a thing. That's wild!
2:55 I don't believe there are two ducks in that picture. Does the other imaginary duck not have the wire base like the other? Because that would be easily visible even if the other duck was camouflaged.
Not really, because that's the whole point of good camouflage, I'm sure many have seen pictures of animals with camouflage and only finding it because of the eyes and not the shadows, plus this si a grainy image so it probably looked more noticeable irl
I never understood the real efficacy of countershading until I started applying it to realistic situations for the animals. In my green front yard, the deer are going to be easily visible no matter what-they’re just a different color. But in the woods, against the browns and tans of the tree trunks and leaf litter, with the dappled light and broken sight lines from the trees, it’s genuinely hard to spot a white-tailed deer until you’re right near it and it flicks its tail up and runs away.
From the thumbnail for this video, I thought it was going to be about why tetrapods pretty much all have the same basic body plan, with four legs and two eyes in mirrored pairs. I didn't even think twice about the fact that the animal in the thumbnail was countershaded. To me that says less about the design of the thumbnail and more about the ubiquity of countershading.
In terms of sea creatures, it may have something to do with the evolution of the first eyes. The common thought is (to my knowledge) that the first eyes which emerged worked largely by sensing differences in relative brightness to sense prey, etc. Perhaps simple contrastive shading worked extremely well in this environment where eyes depended on sensing contrast, which in turn caused eyes to evolve better movement perception
I wasted about an hour on the internet looking at different websites showing Thayer's duck photo. I was unable to find any website that showed an outline of the 2nd duck. My son put the photo in Gimp and did various manipulations to the photo, and still, no 2nd duck. I'm not much for blind faith. I need to see the 2nd duck.
Thayer fudged a bit by also adding some texture to make it blend into ground, but I messed with it in photoshop and can make out the back of the duck shape and part of the wire loop holding it up. Doesn’t help that he took the photo with a potato!
@@bcataiji I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! I didnt need to photoshop or whatever. the camouflage basically gets darker and more cluttered at the neck and back of the duck, and way lighter and more dispersed at his belly!! Pls let know when u finally do see it. And if u truly cant see it maybe i will make an outline xD
2:55 took me a minute because I was expecting the second duck to be the same shape and face the opposite way...I was wrong, it's also facing right and is a slightly different shape, also slightly darker than the background. *slightly*
I once again received an answer to a question that I had not thought about but would like to know. I love it when it happens. Great job. I would like to say that evolution is truly an amazing thing. What tricks will she go to so that life on this planet continues. And continued in the most practical and beautiful way. To be honest, I don't really understand how it works, but I find this topic very interesting. I would like more videos on this.😏
I believe this is partly so, because that's where the joke in Madagascar 2 comes from, the scene where he's looking for Marty but all the Zebras sound and look the same
I thought it would be due to sun exposure, since many animals who live in darkness like axolotls and olms don’t have lighter bellies. I guess animals would be more likely to be a solid color if that was the case, though. And animals that live in darkness don’t necessarily need visual camouflage, so it could explain both the phenomenon and it’s exception.
It's his mouth and nose, he does quick breaths and snorts. Watch his annunciation in video portions where he says "Especially" "Seem". At the end of the word caterpillars. Maybe he has a lisp as a kid and had to do speech therepy.
I mean that’s evolution bro, of course. I find it the similarities between two wildly different creatures serving different purposes in different environments the most interesting. It heavily implies that’s just the best way to do things, but why? In this case it’s just because it’s how light works but there’s a million more features
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Adds a whole different meaning to throwing shade, eh?
pretty sure the darkening is due to the sun's harmful rays. having more pigment or darkness prevents harmful rays from preventing the body preventing DNA deconstruction and mutation!
Is it that though or is it just a physiological reaction producing more melanin on the side that receives more UV?
Audio in this video is undercooked. Got a bit of cracklin' goin' on.
you should watch that latest Vsauce short on contrast illusion and combine efforts. Just sayin. Yall coulda had something magical here with each other's research and like a couple hours over zoom.
Totally, but any idea why Humans didn't also evolve with counter shading?
Looking only at the title of the video, I thought the question would be "Why do so many animals have a head, torso, and four appendages (with possibly a tail)?
Same, that’s what I was expecting and and then he throws the curveball of lighter underside. Now I’m more curious why 4 limbed animals (advanced/vertebrates) are by far the overwhelming majority. Like even the animals that seem to only have two useful limbs also have two vestigial limbs.
@@monhi64 All mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds evolved from a single tetrapod ancestor. The majority of the animal kingdom's species actually have more or less legs (e.g. insects), but the tetrapods are certainly the largest land animals so we're more familiar with them.
@@monhi64 having for 4 limbs (with specific orientation of knees and elbows) helps moving around your environment to escape predators or get food. Also explain why land mammals have a neck.
Me too.
I do feel like the title was way too broad.
In birds, it's thought that the counter-shading helps them remain hidden in flight. The darker top hides them from falcons or other birds of prey that would swoop down from above, blending them in with the ground, while the lighter belly hides them from their own prey that watches for them, blending them in with the sky.
similar to the point about fish
You absolutely didn't have to make the example creature make little noises but you still did, and I appreciate it so much
If only all animals did that.
MWAH! Wah MwAh!!
Super auto pets sound
Me to
thisss, i even rewinded it just so i could watch it again 😭
0:42
Counter shadowing definitely works. I have a dog and he is a Border Collie crossed with a Labrador and he has a gorgeous coat of mostly black fur with white paws and a white chest and belly. When he's in the garden at night, or lying in the hall at the top of the stairs with the light out you can only really see his paws because of that contrast and if he lies a certain way in the dark then it's literally impossible to see him at all and you wind up tripping up over him. So in conclusion it works for the domestic dog so they can confuse and trip up owners.
My parents dog is part black lab with some light grey on her belly and muzzle from the blue tick coonhound in her. When she lays down on the floor at night she's invisible with the lights off, such a tripping hazard. (I learned to walk slowly and without picking my feet up above the level of her body for both our protection)
Sometimes she's loud at night, and other times she will silently follow you and lay infront of the bathroom door so you trip on her as you leave. (Presumably unintentionally, she likes to be close to people)
Works for cats too.
@@FerreTrip it does 🤔
It may also help regulate an animal from the heat of the sun and protect their vulnerable spots.
we used to have a rottweiler which would lay underneath my dad's desk and due to the shadows and his dark coat the only thing you could see was his eyes. Every time I came home and would look around for him I would walk into my dad's office and peek beneath the desk to find him and just see a pair of eyes staring back at me.
I have a pet upside-down catfish which likes to spend its time upside-down as the name suggests, its got a dark belly and light back. So countershading obviously does something important because compared to its close relatives in the same genus that dont swim like weirdos its shading is reversed.
Gotta say that sounds like the most interesting pet fish EVER.
I love way the first half of this is written😭
@@Beryllahawk Actually it just feels wrong more than anything. It hides most of the time but comes out the instant it smells food, it is a ravenous and greedy little guy.
Synodontis nigriventris is the species name in Latin if you wanted to know. they are rather easy to care for and common in the pet trade since they breed readily. Just be carful since they can outcompete other fish for food.
aw i love those guys
@@Exquailibur Gotta admit most of the fish I handled growing up were tetras and mollies. The coolest fish we ever had, had to have a tank to himself because he would've eaten all the others. An Oscar, I think is what my stepfather said he was. But this was also a fish with Big Opinions and we could "play fetch" with him by dropping a d20 in the tank. He'd catch it and spit it out and 10 year old me thought that was the funniest thing...
I no longer have the means or fortitude to keep fish but they still interest me!
And TBH, ravenous and greedy fits right in with most catfish from what I've seen
Slightly different, but it blew me away how much my black cat can dissappear. That's a huge advantage to a shadow hiding pounce predator
My grey cat was impossible to see at night and in shadow. Even more so than my black one. Mind blowing.
Another potential function of countershading is to protect against sun damage on the most exposed parts of the body
This is actually what I assumed the answer would be!
Exactly! And this is also (supposedly) why humans have more hair in the top of the head, back, and specifically on the "top" of the lowerarms, etc
@@O.Genericobald humans be like: Wait WTF
@@O.Generico I believe it's more of an all-around protection(against heat, dirt, water, bacteria etc. etc.), because we also have hair in our nose, around our eyes, in our armpits(that in my opinion has zero purpose in any way), and in the crotch.
I would guess that was the initial reason for it happening with the nice side effect of going completely camou for other animals.
Ever since I've learned kitefin sharks are the largest bioluminescent vertebrates, I've been fascinated by the concept of counterillumination. Was really neat to see it mentioned.
Wow, I had no idea that countershading was so common in the animal kingdom! This video really opened my eyes to the amazing ways animals have adapted to their environments.
Does this means us humans have white underbellies?
@@wisesquirrel4986 As someone who rarely sees the sun, I'm pretty white all over.
@@wisesquirrel4986 i guess this works on animals who walk on 4 legs or like walk with horizontal bodies
I agree, now I will also look at it in a new way.
@@wisesquirrel4986
Maybe a little...it's most visible on black people when you see the hands and the legs (lighter below)
As someone who co-majors as an artist and scientist. THIS IS THE BEST VIDEO EVER THANK YOU
4:54 countershading definitely does keep animals from being spotted, in fact, it makes their topsides one colour and their middles and bottoms others! Those aren’t spots!
I approve of this wordplay
@@besmart I like it😊
interesting 🧐
Leopards are spotted. Theory incorrect 🤷♂️
@@lordhegamonster6931 too bad! They’re still counter shaded under their spots! 😉
And I said “keeps animals from” not “makes spots on amnimals impawssible”
Is it just me, or is the audio really crunchy?
Thank you! I thought my airpods were blown out
Super crunchy
forreal
isn't
I thought my phone broke
Interesting idea. I've noticed countershading in fish as it was more obvious that it helps blend in against any background but I've never thought about it in land animals. At the beginning I thought it would be the same explanation but surely animals on land don't have predators that look at them from below or above so that threw me for a loop.
While most land animals don't have predators looking up at them (not counting crocodiles lurking in the water), many have to deal with birds of prey or ambushes from cats in trees, so that means being watched from above. Although all of these prey species have to worry about conventional land predators who only view them from the side. (Assuming level ground and same head height)
Fun fact, almost all of these designs were used in war to varying effects.
Counter shading is the most common, getting used on planes and ships (and similar concepts to the fish and birds, airplanes were often designed to blend in with the ground when seen from above, and sky from below). Virtually every variant of colours, whether just to eliminate shadows or to actually match colours with ground/sky were tried.
Counter illumination was used on some canadian warships, although it was used in ww2 in limited numbers. When it worked it could reduce the ships visibility by others up to 70%. Unfortunately it was expensive, complicated, and the lights were too fragile and often too slow to change. Allied victory in the battle of the atlantic lead to increased control over the atlantic, less risk for convoys (and hence less need for camoflauge), and she was already being obsoleted by sonar and aircraft carriers - all of those things combining to mean it wasn't worth the money to continue development.
America did briefly experiment with counter illumination of aircraft after the canadian project fell apart. And although it was promising, again radar meant that it was obsolete, and it was dropped.
Zebra esque ships were designed to make judging their size, speed, and direction more difficult to make hitting them more difficult. However, the efficacy was limited at best, and made them more visible and more likely to get destroyed at worst.
In a lot of songbirds the female will blend in with the background, but the male will be brightly colored in order to draw away a predator.
As someone that has lived in a rural area most their life, and has Hunted quite a bit, I can understand how the color patterns do hide animals.
Great concept.
I can't help but think those cases probably commonly end up doubling as a mate selection display. Showing off just how brightly coloured you are and yet that you have survived suggests a degree of tenaciousness that could itself be an asset in a mate. It would suggest that not only are they well adapted to protect their mate and their offspring but also to live and return to continue to provide for them too. Those that were too slow or weak with such a colour scheme are likely to have already been weeded out before mating age so if the females were biologically prone to prefer the bright colours in a mate they would be more likely to select the males that also happened to be stronger, faster, and hardier too. After all this would be far from the only example in biology where a trait was adapted to pull double duty.
@@seraphina985 100% agree. The bright colors not only attract the female but pull away predators. Like I stated I live in a rural area, so I watch this dance Every Spring and it is beautiful to watch.
Dang, this reminds me, I need to get my hummingbird feeders up.
Thanks Smarter Everyday, and commenter I can't remember the name of as I wasn't even thinking about it till now.
@@seraphina985 seriously thank you, I love to watch my hummingbirds dance, and I wasn't even thinking about that yet.
Such dimorphism is reversed ang species where the females compete for mates.
You saying male birds are colorful to draw away predators sound silly. One reason, is they use that to attract mates. Some female birds are colorful too. So you're saying female birds are colorful to draw away predators too? What about colorful fish, reptitles, amphibians, bright yellow baby chickens or ducklings, or even humans like ones with orange hair?
Counter shading was also used to camouflage military aircraft during WWII: the upper surfaces of an aircraft were painted to match the environment they were expected to fly over, while the lower surfaces were painted in much lighter colors to reduce their contrast against the much brighter sky
"I promise there's two ducks in the photo."
Well, I guess people on the internet have told me worse lies.
Yeah, me thinks he's fibbing!
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
@@xavierxrc I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
I just love the lil critter just being a lil gremlin
It fills my soul with joy
I think something is up with the audio? It is really popping and snapping for me. Every other video I have watched today hasn't had this issue.
I even cleaned up my headphones and it didnt help, other videos sound ok, defo somethings up with this one.
I think the audio is F'ed up
It got very distracting when I started noticing and got worried about my phone speaker being f'd up. Thsnk god it's just the video lol
Yeah it's super distracting I'm listening to it on my Samsung Galaxy pro earbuds and the popping and clicking is really pronounced. Something is definitely up with the audio in this particular video
I thought it was my computer speakers...
When i had to draw an underwater piece i actually realized how hard it is do paint noticeable fishes. I have searched online but most of the fishes are actually blend in with the ocean so well its merely different from painting sea with different reflections.
Hey Joe! Love your video as always! For some reason, this one as a static low level noise.
Other than that, great video and great topic!!!
yeah I can hear the clipping/peaking too. it's kinda cool, electric like a rock and roll song
edit Especially on the sibilants /s/ /"th"/ /"sh"/
Thank goodness, I thought my speaker was slightly broken
I was looking for this comment to make sure that my speakers weren't broken 😂
Oh, so it wasn't me.
I thought my headphones were broken.
I feel like this highlights the importance of viewing a problem from completely different perspectives. I love how it was an artist, not a scientist, who came up with the solution!
I knew it! A painter figured it out! I remember learning about this in college in my painting class when studying the masters
I do believe most animals are camouflaged by default unless the benefit of whatever reduces their camouflage outweighs the downside of no longer being camouflaged.
Really, why wouldn't they be unless it doesn't matter?
@@CAMSLAYER13 agreed. If you look at it objectively, without photo editing, tigers, an animal we'd consider quite striking, are incredibly well camouflaged in their natural habitats. Wild cats in general are hard to even spot a few hundred feet away if they're still. You'd never know they were there unless you subconsciously picked up on the fact you were being watched. They're incredibly well camouflaged despite the fact if you put them in a white room that they're striking in appearance.
I think it started as a reaction to the sun.
Just one of those things where if it gives you an even minor but clear advantage, you're gonna live longer, that trait will be passed on. Coloration of fur, skin, scales, etc, is something that can change in only a few generations so that adaptation taking over very rapidly makes sense
@@ZentaBonAdding to that, most mammals are essentially red-green colorblind. So orange fur against a green background actually works well.
Hey "Be Smart" please keep uploadin! You have grown my interest in science so much! And broadened it to all the sciences, not just physics! Keep it up!
grown my internet
@@genesises idk what ur talking about 😇
2:49 for anyone wanting to see the other duck. Reverse Image search the higher definition and bigger version on wiki. Save to photos, go to edit, change the “noise reduction” to zero. I you evenly divide the entire image into 4 sections by with 1 line vertically down the middle and 1 horizontally across the middle. Crop the image so you are just left with the top left part. So you will still have the visible duck in frame. The other duck is literally right above the one you can see. It’s facing the opposite direction. You will see the outline of the entire duck as well as its beak with 2 black nostrils and its eye. It’s confusing because the wiki description says the other duck is on the right, which is technically true but it literally only ever so slightly to the right, but it makes you think that it should be somewhere in the large empty space when both ducks are pretty much near each other. The other one looks like a real duck btw.
Thanks for verifying there is a black duck. I feel like this picture is such BS, the black duck should be as easy to spot as the white duck is when turned upside down. This isn't countershading, it's just perfect shading.
One of the fascinating things about camouflage I saw was last summer in August / September on Greenland. Around a rock we found lapland longspurs and northern wheatears. We could the birds fly in the air. But even when we watched them land on rocks or the ground, just around the time they landed they disappeared and it wasn't easy to spot them again.
Thanks for the great subtitles. As a second language English speaker this is really appreciated.
Ps could you do a video about the coats of cats? I've heard that the reason tuxedo cats exist is due to something that happens with pigment during meiosis.
meowosis
Subtitles are also useful for the parts of the video recorded with a broken microphone, I can just mute it and read instead.
veritasium did a good idea about it
There is a theory that white markings are somehow connected to domestification. Even fish get them, and on the other hand, it isn't present in wild nature
I stumbled upon countershading on my own while drawing. I was coloring a animal with a lighter belly and was getting frustrated that when I added the shadows, the belly and back were the same color.
The programmers responsible for simulating the animals were lazy and just copy pasted the same code with a few random changes to some factors
Oh, do you make videos too?
Yo inheritance
doesn't make sense
LISTEN HERE
Wait, isn't Mozart dead?
Great video again, Joe. I wish you would have emphasized that our eyes are NOT the default. Every species sees the world differently through their own eyes. Some see more infrared while others see ultraviolet. Please look into how different birds and fish look when put under an ultraviolet light. To our eyes, a male and female bird may look idential, but when you put them under ultraviolet light, you can see different patterns between them.
Something that might play into the abundance of countershading is the relative low energy intensiveness and simple way of evolving such a pattern. Since pigments are produced anyways (I assume) and there's no evolutionary pitfall on the way to the new coloration. (Meaning no disadvantage in the middle steps of getting the new pattern.)
I'm sure there are some energy cost differences between different pigments, but the real evolutionary cost of going between patterns is the pattern itself. (Being halfway between 2 camouflages may be worse than fully commiting to just one. Most of our domesticated pet's weird patterns are recessive genes that normally are selected against in nature but are selected for by humans because we find them cute, just as an example of how the patern itself has a cost.)
But in general i agree with you that adjusting coloration patterns is probably an evolutionarily cheap adjustment vs say development of flight.
At first before watching I assumed it had to do with animals using coloring for all kinds of purposes such as attracting mates, warning predators, etc. And that having coloring on the underside, for land animals at least, is somewhat useless since those sides aren't seen.
Love you guys! Big thanks to the whole Be Smart team for your work and dedication❣
WHERE IS THE DUCK? IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY! You have to be joking that there's another duck in the photo... right?
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
Thank you! A thousand comments and this is the only one worth liking.
Oh my heck. Thanks! I Can kind of see it!
@@brunoballakI can't even see the damned wire
Very underrated thumbnail & title. Took me hours to figure out what common trait that creature shares with the rest of the animal kingdom, felt kinda dumb when I realized afterwards that the arrows are pointing right to it 😅
Could the sun also cause melanin production to be higher on top and not needed as much on underbellies?
I always thought that was the case.
That doesn't work with fur
Seems a much simpler explanation
Obliterative shading sounds much cooler than counter shading
I remember studying this in zoology class in college, but we only focused on aquatic animals.
Edit: Brilliant really is awesome! (Totally recommend) I'm taking a math course on it right now. Skillshare is good too, I'm taking a drawing course on there.
Skillshare is a big big scam. Watch the YT about it
i... had absolutely never thought about this. ever. this really is quite fascinating
I'm not convinced there is a second duck. :)
How did you comment 10 hours ago?
@@LordPhoenix9251 Special donater
@@Cat-yx7xcGood Good Good.
@@Cat-yx7xcGood Good Good.
I can’t find any evidence that there is a second duck, either. 🤔
Countershading is propably also quite helpful preventing sunburns.
The praying mantis at 8:19 totally got me.
Yup, me too
I think it was an Orchid mantis.
@@tomsko863 absolutely beautiful little creature
If you were an ant, then literally!! 😅
Cube is life
I actually learned about countershading when I joined the military.
I only learned about it being learned from animals because I had a really well-educated Drill Sergeant.
My theory is that it's for belly rubs. Everyone wants them and having a different color there just shows where you wanna be rubed.
I like the way you think
@@hammysan2090 I used to have a hamster that changed its color every 3 years and he loved getting them.
@@gilgabro420 that is just adorable
This is an example of convergent evolution, btw.
Just like how evolution keeps producing crabs like body plan, it also produces counter shaded colouring.
The stand for the 2nd duck is visible. I'm guessing that camouflage went further than just gradient shading though 😜
Yeah I've been staring for so long but I can only maybe make out the stand
@@ryanwester2559 I tried unfocussing my gaze just a little bit and I THINK I might have seen the outline: it's very close to the visible one, on the close right. But I agree with OP: there's also some pattern at work there.
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
I'm surprised they didn't use a negative example from lightless places like a sealed cave to support that countershading is an evolution dealing with visible light. Was glad they talked about penguins using it for heat as a measurable flaw in the hypothesis. They could also have mentioned how polar bears are essentially one color to blend into arctic coloring to further address monochromatic animals as well.
Totally expected a video on bilateral symmetry and why things have heads.
So did I, but this may have been more interesting.
This colour pattern has a tag on e621 btw, it's called "countershading"
Thanks PBS for still being a trustworthy news network!
I always also imagined it helped with UV protection from the sun.
You mentioned that countershading sort of “transforms” 3-d to 2-d. Is there a “countershading” equivalent that can transform 4-d to 3-d?
I was so sure there was going to be an highlight of the other duck on the end of the video... can't overstate my disappointment 😢
I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! no cap, try fullscreen on monitor perhaps?
8:19 Okay that Praying Mantis completely caught me off guard. Nice work.
Am I the only person who finds evolution's motto of "good enough" to be incredibly comforting
Omg my cats dog and snake have this shading thing going on - never really opened my brain to it. Wow ! Black backs white tummy red back white tummy. How fascinating.. will be noting it everywhere from now on
2:48 where's the second duck!?
It's there on the right. We can't see it because not only it proved the theory.... It's also an old picture taken in 1917, with old camera. So the quality kind of "help" it to camouflage it even more.
There is no duck
Yeah i did some effects and flipped the image and the duck never showed up
There's only one damn duck.
4:00 the audio is broken, i can hear crackling noise while you speak
and no, it's not my speakers
About the duck picture, why don't you insult me by drawing a circle?
I always wondered about this as a kid, thanks!
I didn’t even realize that mantis was a bug at first I was just like “did that flower just eat that fly? I’ve never seen a carnivorous plant move that fast” and then I flipped back and processed what was going on lol
1:42 Something wrong with the audio from here, there's a crackle.
1:41 Starting from this point onwards the audio gets distorted like speaking while dropping pebbles or something, very noticeable when you wear headphones.
Hey there Joe, this video's audio is pretty annoying, there is noise and clipping right from the first mic sounds.. could you look into it?
"I promise there are two ducks in this picture."
Well. I found the wire loop on the ground to help locate the duck and can _almost_ pick out the duck.
Don't worry, it will be a crab soon...
So cool! Nature is awesome. I had heard a little bit about countershading but not to this extent, and I CERTAINLY didn't know counterillumination was a thing. That's wild!
What's up with crackling in the audio? I think you missed it there 😅
i love how derpy the animal looks at the thumbnail
Animals, science AND art? Love it
The audio on this video made me think something was wrong with my headphones.
Besides that, I loved this.
2:55 I don't believe there are two ducks in that picture. Does the other imaginary duck not have the wire base like the other? Because that would be easily visible even if the other duck was camouflaged.
I thought the same thing. Kind of think that the man got carried away trying to make his point there.
Not really, because that's the whole point of good camouflage, I'm sure many have seen pictures of animals with camouflage and only finding it because of the eyes and not the shadows, plus this si a grainy image so it probably looked more noticeable irl
I thought for sure they were going to come back and reveal the trick, but… are there really two ducks??
I can't see no damn duck, paused and stared at it with high quality for like 20 min. Pssh
@@TheNextFiles288 IKR
All of them are dark on top, and light below, except us... We are the aliens.
counter-illumination is just countershading that's more than 100%
p.s only works in one direction, hard to get blacker than black
I never understood the real efficacy of countershading until I started applying it to realistic situations for the animals. In my green front yard, the deer are going to be easily visible no matter what-they’re just a different color. But in the woods, against the browns and tans of the tree trunks and leaf litter, with the dappled light and broken sight lines from the trees, it’s genuinely hard to spot a white-tailed deer until you’re right near it and it flicks its tail up and runs away.
Audio problems Joe!
I totally thought you would say 2-sided. You totally caught me unguarded by the shading patterns.
Sorry I couldnt finish the video, I just hear the noise from a badsignal or cable from microphone...
That is quite the realization that universally everything has this pattern to some degree due to the sun.
is it just me or is there a little distortion in the audio especially when joe speaks?
me too
Now here's a science fiction idea, animals with dark bellies and white backs might as well be walkin' on the sun
Does the sound of the video has noise, like clipping for you too?
From the thumbnail for this video, I thought it was going to be about why tetrapods pretty much all have the same basic body plan, with four legs and two eyes in mirrored pairs. I didn't even think twice about the fact that the animal in the thumbnail was countershaded. To me that says less about the design of the thumbnail and more about the ubiquity of countershading.
Exactly! I, too, didn´t even notice the pale belly ... that´s just what animals look like.
I've stared at that picture way too long. Its only got one duck.
This is a really good question. I've never noticed this before
Is it just me, or there's crackling in the audio? It's most noticeable @3:01
In terms of sea creatures, it may have something to do with the evolution of the first eyes. The common thought is (to my knowledge) that the first eyes which emerged worked largely by sensing differences in relative brightness to sense prey, etc. Perhaps simple contrastive shading worked extremely well in this environment where eyes depended on sensing contrast, which in turn caused eyes to evolve better movement perception
I wasted about an hour on the internet looking at different websites showing Thayer's duck photo. I was unable to find any website that showed an outline of the 2nd duck. My son put the photo in Gimp and did various manipulations to the photo, and still, no 2nd duck. I'm not much for blind faith. I need to see the 2nd duck.
Thayer fudged a bit by also adding some texture to make it blend into ground, but I messed with it in photoshop and can make out the back of the duck shape and part of the wire loop holding it up. Doesn’t help that he took the photo with a potato!
@@besmart , I can see the wire on the ground and perhaps the part of the wire going up, but I just can't see the duck.
@@bcataiji I ACTUALLY SEE IT , if you follow the wire on the right upwards, u can trace the shape. It is exactly the same duck and also looking to the right!!! I didnt need to photoshop or whatever. the camouflage basically gets darker and more cluttered at the neck and back of the duck, and way lighter and more dispersed at his belly!! Pls let know when u finally do see it. And if u truly cant see it maybe i will make an outline xD
2:55 took me a minute because I was expecting the second duck to be the same shape and face the opposite way...I was wrong, it's also facing right and is a slightly different shape, also slightly darker than the background. *slightly*
5:58 “mediocrates” 😂😂😂
woahhh i understood the simple light-pigment relation, but the idea of obliterative shading was pretty mind boggling
0:49 crowns : hold my beer
Are you talking about crows or cows?
I once again received an answer to a question that I had not thought about but would like to know. I love it when it happens. Great job. I would like to say that evolution is truly an amazing thing. What tricks will she go to so that life on this planet continues. And continued in the most practical and beautiful way. To be honest, I don't really understand how it works, but I find this topic very interesting. I would like more videos on this.😏
5:13 don't zebras camouflage themselves as individuals within their pack instead of using their surroundings?
Zebra coloration is probably more about confusing parasitic and biting insects
@@besmart countershading is 😎 cool
I believe this is partly so, because that's where the joke in Madagascar 2 comes from, the scene where he's looking for Marty but all the Zebras sound and look the same
I thought it would be due to sun exposure, since many animals who live in darkness like axolotls and olms don’t have lighter bellies. I guess animals would be more likely to be a solid color if that was the case, though. And animals that live in darkness don’t necessarily need visual camouflage, so it could explain both the phenomenon and it’s exception.
am I the only one that hears a crackling? the sound seems to be bad on this one (the content is super as usual)
It's his mouth and nose, he does quick breaths and snorts. Watch his annunciation in video portions where he says "Especially" "Seem". At the end of the word caterpillars. Maybe he has a lisp as a kid and had to do speech therepy.
@@aresjerry no, it's not that, it feels like radiation interference or frequency clipping
I actually thought the video was going to talk about animal's most common shape but I guess I bamboozled myself. Cool video regardless!
What about static noise on the audio, or is it only me
glad im not the only one
THANK YOU! I've been wondering if it was just my headphones on some of his other videos. So distracting!
THANK YOU! have been asking this for years!
it's so weird that we just have to live and our bodies can just intuitively adapt to our surroundings
I mean that’s evolution bro, of course. I find it the similarities between two wildly different creatures serving different purposes in different environments the most interesting. It heavily implies that’s just the best way to do things, but why? In this case it’s just because it’s how light works but there’s a million more features
they can’t, our bodies just make random “mistakes” during reproduction which just so happen to be advantageous.