For predators, it doesn’t take them starving to death to drive the natural selection. Simply reproducing less due to less food is enough. For example a pair of brown owls might raise 3 owlets per year while a white pair may only raise one
They're likely not "reproducing less", more likely less white owlets grow up to full maturity. I mean---you know what (most) owls do to their weaker babies 🍽️
As a red-green colourblind guy, I’ve found I can see through camouflage much easier than others. Genetic mistake or evolutionary advantage? As I understand it, I automatically ignore colours and focus on looking for edges/shapes. This was apparently utilised during WW2 Allied bombing runs as colourblind folk could pick out camouflaged targets. I just use it to find ghillie campers/snipers in video games.
It's a small advantage coming with the big disadvantage of not being able to differentiate colors well. Also, this is a trained advantage that normal trichromats can learn, too.
I'm red/green colour blind and I can often see through camouflage and spot people easily. I don't know how I see them when others can't as I've never had normal colour vision.
@@kevinsyd2012 also born this way and first noticed the difference from normies when watching my missus playing call of duty. She was taking cover behind a bush and I ask why she isn’t shooting the sniper beside her. Who? Where? I said, the guy in the ghillie clearly in the bush! She doesn’t see or believe me so I say to just shoot the fupping bush. Low and behold she gets a kill but swears blind she couldn’t make out a player. I was completely dumbfounded but then read that our brains compensate for lack of colour differentiation by focusing on shapes. Like she could quickly find a green pear in a large display of red apples. However she would struggle to find the pear if the apples were all a similar green. Whereas in both examples I would be looking for the pear shape and find it in much the same time.
@@ooqui I also find I have an advantage in lower light conditions because I naturally look for outlines of shapes. It also has the massive benefit of not needing to be included in my missus’ decorating discussions/decisions as colours mean little to me. Do you like this white or this light grey? Yes!!
I've had the opportunity to visit a tiger sanctuary in a jungle in Thailand, and that orange cat is very well camouflaged relative to human vision. It makes sense though when you know about how we see color. The difference between brown and orange that we see is largely contextual, so if you have an environment with patches of brown in it and not just a green screen of grass, orange is interpreted as another shade of brown and the tiger vanishes.
not fortgetting to mention all the different small patches of bright light and dark shadows emerging from the gaps between leaves in the jungle's roof. The varying contrasts make it even harder to unconciously spotting such animals.
I might be wrong, but brown isn't actually a "color"? It's just a darker orange with lighter colors sorounding it, so its more of a contextual color, like you said. Similar to purple, which isn't actually a physical wavelength. Both colors a purely psychological
gunna say it looks pretty good for hiding in fields of dry grass and in dark jungles the orange would blend well with a mix of fallen leaves, bark and shadows.
Tigers are jungle cats. And the jungle floor is an orange leaf litter, striped by the shadows of large ferns. I've seen tigers in that environment, and they're completely invisible, till you actually make out a face staring right at you.
Viceroy butterflies have recently been discovered to also not taste great to predators. It’s Mullerian mimic and tastes just as bad as monarch butterflies. The two species use similar appearances to send the same message of “I taste terrible” reinforcing each other.
The orange jacket is a bit of "Fudd lore" and is going out of favor. One problem with hunters wearing orange to avoid being shot is what about all the non-hunters who might also be in the area? Hunters are perfectly capable of holding their fire and only shooting at something they have positively identified is a legal species to hunt. If your view is so bad you shouldn't be taking the shot. This attitude of "I think I can see something, it doesn't look orange so I'll shoot it" is a terrible idea. Also, red-green colorblindness is really common, orange light is just a blend of red and green light. When hunting you have to be responsible: be absolutely sure what you're shooting at and position where if you miss any projectile will go in a safe direction. This is why rifle hunters shoot from high ground aiming down, so any miss goes into the ground you can see no one else could be standing.
@@TreblaineWe don't wear orange to avoid being shot by the well trained hunters, we wear them to increase the odds against idiots. However I do hope the less well trained hunters see your post. ❤
A lot of older military aircraft also used Countershading. The underside was almost always given a light blue-grey color, while the topside was some camouflage depending on where the plane was intended to be used. Naval aircraft tended to use solid colors more, since the ocean doesn't have much of a pattern to blend an outline into.
Plus the water surface and the sky at the horizon are nearly the same color. And the typical naval grey blends in quite well. And then there is dazzle camouflage, which goes a completely different way. Instead of hiding, try to confuse the enemy about your distance and direction.
Because red-green colorblind people perceive a narrower range of colors, they’re sometimes less distracted by colors in their environment. This can help in distinguishing subtle variations in texture, brightness, and pattern-traits that often give away camouflaged objects.
One of the big misconceptions about countershading is that it is meant to make the animal harder to see from below, when in reality it makes them all but disappear into the background when viewed from the side. This is especially true in the water.
Another reason why a tiger is orange is because mammals can't synthesize green (or blue) pigment. We don't have the DNA for it. Blue and green eyes are due to the way a certain type of collagen refracts light.
It wouldn't have to be a true green pigment tho. It could just be light refraction, like how most birds do it. Although I assume that it's much more difficult to evolve from hair or skin than it is from feathers
Not really, because there are no predators hunting for house cats so there is no natural selection there. Natural selection will happen mainly with outside cats as they still have predators
@@matthewb840 Natural selection isn't reserved exclusively for prey, all it'd take is the cat to not catch enough food because it doesn't blend in for the cats that DO blend in to thrive and populate more. Or it to fail to catch food for its babies if it's able to blend in somewhat.
About tigers, my neighbor used to have an orange cat that use to get out and hide in my bushes and garden. You wouldn't think it, but that cat was hard for my human eyes to spot when he was there.
Hey joe, this is Chris...the guy that was behind you the whole time. I was in the chiaroscuro suit, even in the corner of your office, I left a red pistachio with a blue smiley face as proof.
@@nobody.of.importanceElementary school teachers are surprisingly science illiterate, with exceptions of course. By about grade 4 our son often knew more about some topics than the teacher. We tried to teach him to listen to what the teacher said and write THAT on the tests.
@@HweolRidda Yeah my 8th grade math teacher had me teach a lesson to the class because she couldn't understand it. I've had very few teachers I think back on and think that they were qualified to teach, it's honestly really sad.
@@josephjoestar953 That is a bit sweeping. Teaching elementary school attracts people who are good at relating to kids and aren't bad at the "soft" subjects like reading and writing or even biology. However as a group they are weak at the mathematically sciences. Middle school is more of a mixed bag. I give that teacher credit for using you, rather than BSing.
I think hunting camouflage is also tuned to human vision so we associate it with good camouflage (and buy it). Because it could have orange in it and work fine.
I asked a hunter friend of a friend once how pink camo could possibly be useful for more than fashion and learned deer don't see red, so we actually have camo that is very visible to an average human and works for deer on the market, and people buy it and use it, but not because it actually often works as well or better and is visible to other hunters for safety, but because of gender norms. It is so weird how humans think.
And unfortunately some of us that grew up in the 80's and 90s had people like Ken Ham(young earth religious fundamentalist) brainwashing us to view the world through an Uber pseudoscientific lens based on a bunch of fairy tales. Too bad it took a whole 32 out of the 40 years I've been alive to realize this but at least I grew out of it eventually LOL
It's amazing what the brain sees and doesn't see. Very cool and kind of scary that our brain fills-in/finishes/ignores a lot of the information our eyes gather.
It is cool, but if you think the brain is filling in the blind spot caused by the circular optic disc right smack in the center of your field of vision, it makes more sense.
It's interesting how Zebra camouflage themselves onto their group, the stripes and such when mixed together in a group of zebras makes it quite hard to for predators to pick out individual zebras, it all just looks like one blob of zebra. They not only camouflaged themselves onto their background, they created their own background.
@@billyruffian1426 Fairly certain this is the stronger hypothesis at the moment. Or at least it was when I last really looked at the relevant literature a few years ago. I am a Marine Ecologist though, so I do not keep absolutely up to date when it comes to terrestrial stuff, so things may have changed in the intervening period.
I dont know man. I once saw a video of a tiger walking into some foliage and it just melted into it. It might be even harder for a deer but i think it's pretty hard for humans too
One of my favorite military jokes is the drill instructor saying: Drill Instructor: “Williams!” Pvt Williams: “Sir! Yes Sir!” Drill Instructor: “I did not see you in camouflage instruction today!” Pvt Williams: “Sir! Thank you Sir! 😄. I paraphrased but that’s the jist and it always makes me smile. Thanks for posting. I’ve always found camouflage to be super interesting.
I would also like one thing pointed out in these videos more. This one scratches a little on it. Humans are unfair. Because of our high inteligence, pretty damn good eyes, and absolutely insane pattern recognition, we can look through camoflage like few if any other animals can. While we do get fooled by it too, it is so much less reliable on us than on most other animals.
Big thing he missed was saying that the snake was "invisible" when we have been hard wired for millions of years to be able to detect snakes - regardless of however much camouflage they may have. If it is snake shaped, we WILL see it.
@@Jayson_Tatum very true, it is so hardwired into our brain that we will in most cases actually avoid getting bitten, bc subconsciously we recognise the shape of a snake and automatically retract, and that's saying something when snakes have a reaction time of roughly 45ms at their fastest while humans are at about 150ms
@@jamesmnguyen It is. Intelligence really is a hard counter for a lot of things. Which is why we as a species skilled so hard into it. With what out ancestors had, mainly not all that of a great sense of smell, no true natural defences or weapons, hearing that isn’t all that great compared to other animals, and not a whole lot of power? With the evolutionary niche we slid into developing intelligence was basically a forgone conclusion. Because being already pretty smart and nimble with dexterous appendages and good vision, it really was a set up for developing intelligence to compensate for other areas our ancestors lacked in. No natural defense? Well, be intelligent enough to avoid the danger. No natural weapons? Well, there is a whole lot of perfectly fine sticks/rocks lying around. No good sense of smell or hearing? Well, visions is good, so you need intelligence and skill up that pattern recognition to stand in for it. And memory to stay aware of these things despite them only existing when looked at. Also spacial relations and a very good understanding of past present and capabilities to calculate possible futures. Really, it was a perfect storm that made our ancestors develop exactly the right traits for the kind of intelligence we have. What really killed it was that our ancestors got forced to become ground animals instead of arboreal, so they suddenly had those nimble hands and arms free to constantly do stuff instead of locomotion. And the incredibly range of motion of their shoulders from originally climbing added in did one thing utterly unique in the animal kingdom. Precisely throwing things with a lot of power. If you take all that stuff together, you suddenly get in a feedback loop of success after a certain threshold of intelligence is passed. Which favours higher intelligence and rewards it with better survival, and even more sucess. Which leads us to us modern humans, being so intelligent we can repurpose the original hardware for utterly different and originally “unintended” tasks. Which makes us one of the scariest super predators to have ever lived, because even if we are at first unsuccessful, given time we WILL find a solution. Humans are basically the animal equivalent of the “Batman with prep time can beat anyone” meme.
Slight correction: Viceroy butterflies are müllerian mimics, which means that both butterflies having the same patterns may not mean that the viceroy is trying to mimic monarch butterfly and try to look intimidating. Instead it was likely convergent evolution as it is now known that viceroy butterflies are also poisonous to predators, maybe both butterflies almost independently evolved the same patterns to warn the predator.
This explains why a regular squirrel in my yard (I could recognize him by his scruffy tail) was confused when I was passing out Halloween candy in a costume. Normally he runs away from me but couldn't figure me out and got closer than normal.
Mimicry may be the reason why we humans developed dance/makeup, as a way to rhythmically move together mimicking a "large animal" to keep predators away
@AlexanderWeixelbaumer -- A missed opportunity, for sure. I am now, though, imagining Waldo-Joe but with forest 'camo' green and traffic cone-orange stripes instead of his usual red-and-white shirt and hat. Like some mashup of actual tiger's stripes camouflage and the human fashion green-camo print idea of camouflage. And wow, what an eyesore that would be (once you actually finally spotted him, of course).
He immediately starts the video with a bit about camouflage. Meanwhile, my screen: goes black when I hit full screen, then dimmed with YT buttons. When that's over I hear "YOU JUST GOT FOOLED BY CAMOUFLAGE!!"
I did actually see through the disguise in the beginning, but it was 100% because I was looking for something even slightly out of place due to the title.
Yes if you are in the wild, you will not be able to see those animals. In the video, you KNOW that there is an animal somewhere so you were looking for it, it ain't happening in the wild. 😄
There is a quick video clip of an octopus in the video, but he wasn't specifically talking about octopuses, it was just a visual example of different types of camo.
In the military we are taught to apply lighter paint to the more recessed and darker paint to more elevated surfaces in broken patterns utilizing the colors available.
one of the wildest example of using broken patterns to disrupt vision is ww2 naval "dazzle camo" which are bold geometric patterns on ship hulls. the goal wasn't to be invisible, but to confuse the estimation of the direction of travel, distance, and plainly what part of the ship you were aiming at by disrupting the reading of volume through shading. it was made obsolete by the time radar was a thing, but it was pretty effective.
What’s awesome is the whole ‘slight changes over time, favouring those who survive’ is the same way neural network coding works and is a really intuitive way for people who don’t understand evolution to see something work. ‘Can this neural network learn to beat mario’ ‘beat snake’ ‘beat etc.’.
-3.8 billion BC. One microbe just accidentally enveloped another and started reusing its molecular components. And that's how the predator-prey relationship got started.
Interesting thing to mention is that not all camouflage is visual for example mimics of poisonous butterflies often mimic the flight of the species they are mimicking and orchid mantises smell more like orchids than orchids do
That bit on the bright orange Tigers reminded me of that one "Humans are Space Orcs" story or whatever it's called. Where an entire planet of some friendly aliens are being destroyed by what they're describing as an undetectable, unstoppable, Predator style monster army so they beg humans for help. Humans show up thinking it's going to be an impossible mission, only to find out the evil aliens are bright neon pink and freeze still when they think they've been spotted. The friendly aliens could only see in infrared or something so the evil aliens could change their surface temps to go invisible for a while, but as the heat built up they turned neon pink in the visible spectrum to us.
Camouflage is amazing. But I do wonder wouldn't tigers be better if they were green, I know they don't have to be green. Because the deer only have two colour cones. But surely getting as close to the colour of the vegetation as possible would make it even better.
evolution is pretty much a game of "good enough," and works with what it's given. Unless green fur/melanin randomly mutates, that's not gonna happen. And as far as I'm aware, there... really aren't any mammals with green fur - not unless it's from something like algae growing on them, and there are a LOT of species that would love to have green fur to camouflage themselves. So seemingly it's a very difficult thing to randomly mutate. Couple that with orange fur being apparently 'good enough' that it works, then even if green fur did randomly mutate it might not actually have all that much of a selection pressure placed on it that would counteract random chance and genetic drift (it's all well and good to be perfectly adapted to your environment but if you have a freak accident and never pass on those genes, then it doesn't matter at all).
tl;dr version: It's a lot of effort for little gain. Long version: I actually KIND of have an explanation for this. Mammals typically get their color from varying ratios of two pigment molecules, eumelanin and pheomelanin. The former has a brown color, and high amounts appear black. The latter has a red-yellow tinge, and is responsible for red hair in humans. Generally evolution "prefers" to tweak the ratios of those two pigments as it's relatively very easy to do genetically, needing only a small number of mutations. To create a whole new pigment would likely take a copy and many, MANY mutations to land on 'green' proper. As there's no pressure to evolve that new color (See hypotheticalaxolotl's reply), it just found a pattern that works "good enough".
Interestingly, many species of sloth appear green, but it's not a natural pigment, it's algae growing in their fur. :B Works out for the sloth, helps with camouflage.
Actually... for smaller things with rapid reproduction it doesn't take millions of years to change... I've seen bugs around my place change shape over a decade, and well viruses change basically on a yearly basis...
Yeah, it takes a lot of generations, but not necessarily a lot of time in absolute terms. Neural-network AIs are developed through simulated evolution, and they can go through the whole generational cycle of iterating and testing in seconds, with hundreds or even thousands of instances per generation. Which allows them to home in on whatever their designer is selecting for, extremely rapidly.
Its a common error. I always encourage students to forget about using years as a measure for evolution, but to use generations instead. Its a generational process after all.
Had a thought about just this regarding blackbirds and their bright orange beak. Its their most apparent feature, and when it flies into the bushes your brain automatically looks for the beak, when it would be more helpful to look for a black blob - which makes for great camouflage! Probably a mundane realization, but it was a Eureka moment for me lol.
your shark example is wrong. its got a light belly and dark back cause its an ambush predator so if its below the prey, the darker back fuses it with the dark depths, and if its above the prey its white belly is harder to pick out in the bright water with sun illuminating the background.
The ambush predator part isnt as relevant right? Genuinely asking. Isnt it more of an ocean swimmer thing e.g. penguins (predator and prey), manta rays, etc
@@dervakommtvonhinten517 ...have you tried thinking about/answering the question on your own? Or was that just a long-winded way of saying "idk" im confused E.g. you can google penguins, manta rays, killer whales, dolphins etc to see many forms of marine life have a white belly and darker top that ARENT ambush predators. in fact, I would think the majority of sea life with larger "surface areas" that don't swim along the seabed or in the deep ocean have similar countershading (what it's called apparently)
@@KY-jd1nl the light belly dark back is just to camouflage yourself. WHY you evolved that camouflage can be different you know.... a praying mantis is camouflaged just like a stick insect. one is prey, one is a predator...
@@dervakommtvonhinten517 idk if yt auto removed my reply but... Have you never tried coming up with an answer or opinion on your own? Youre allowed to research too ofc, just like how you got your original post from somewhere else. Or was that just u saying "idk and idc." There are many marine creatures that are not ambush predators with the same type of coloring you described e.g. manta rays, blue whales, dolphins, etc. seems like basically most things that have a large "horizontal" surface area and dont swim mostly along sea floor or in deep ocean
We should keep in mind that all animals are always going through an evolutionary process....some rapid, some less so. Humans are animals too, and so we should ask, are we evolving "better" or "worse"? Depends on how one defines better or worse...
Most people agree that humans have more or less "stop" evolving. We do however experience genetic drift, which means random mutations that don't benefit/hurt us will stick around and spread out.
@jamesmnguyen "Most people" are often wrong. The only evidence they have is based on the idea that we are already at the "top" of the evolutionary journey, which is not true...because there is no "top" of evolution. Yes, we are able to avoid further evolution by contesting against natural forces, but that's because there aren't any ice ages currently happening, nor other globally effective extremes. What we do have however, is this advanced society, which I believe will have a massively outsized effect if something happened that forces us back to stone-age level technology. Until that happens, our natural inclination to help each other out will be subverted by the desire to accumulate insane amounts of wealth and comforts, which creates generation after generation of people less inclined/able to weather the dangers we still face from global disasters (I'm not talking about tsunamis, volcanoes, etc, but truly global events, i.e., ice ages). That kind of thing we cannot stop or mitigate, we'll just watch it coming our way. Whatever plans we may develop would be required to survive 20,000 to 50,000 years, and we haven't survived even 10,000 years...most humans would perish, causing a huge shift of the abilities we've developed over time. We are still evolving, it just takes more than 100 years to see it. We can see evolution happening after watching 100 generations of germs or bugs, but 100 generations of human = 3,000 years.
I was a Navy SEAL candidate. Dont ask me how, but after MEPs failed me for colorvision, I still recieved a SEAL contract to join the Navy despite my colorvision. I eventually got "medically Disqualified" from the SEAL rate during the first week of boot camp so i decided to get out and attempt another job in a different branch that wouldnt give me undesignated. Anyway, I found that colorvision deficiency is actually a superpower and was sought out in point men during WW2 because of their ability to differentiate shapes more easily (i think). Anyway, If youre colorblind and wanna so SOF, go Ranger or SF. Plenty of opportunities.
The Viceroy butterfly is also distasteful, so it's actually an example of Mullerian mimicry, not classic Batesian mimicry. The Viceroy and the Monarch evolved to look similar to each other and predators avoid both because eating either one tastes gross.
08:36 Very well put, Joe. Understandable how previous generations would assume such incredible feats of nature must have been the work of said 'devious artist or sculpture', as you put it... I also think perceptions of natural selection can be impacted by our difficulty evaluating very large numbers; in recent years, behavioural economics has provided some insights on that and similar phenomena
Hm, you know if someone walked around in the woods in a ghille suit they would be mistaken for bigfoot, but if they went to the store in a realistic bigfoot suit they'd just be given weird looks. No one would suspect a real bigfoot buys groceries
That tooth pick demo made it so much clear how evo works. It is an auto process. The one who stick out the most are picked, while the other ones stay alive longer and their genes spread.
It’s fascinating to learn the reason behind these extreme natural camouflages! Sometimes we don’t give due credit to the smartness of many species. If taking the shape of your predator’s predator is not a sign of intelligence I do not know what is! There are no tales or anecdotes passed on in these species, it’s all either just some sort of higher mathematics or extreme bioscience at play - either way I find this engrossing 😊
now i understand how they got those very detailed camouflage..i used to think that the cells are responsible for changing how the animals look, i mean, its kinda like the cells decides how would these animals evolve to look like how their surroundings look like..i did not understood "natural selection"..so its really about which of the species survive and breed until they got the "perfect" form..
Pattern recognition baby, human brains always looking for patterns to easily identify it. There’s also that theory that we develop an ability to such a degree because of snakes, due to them being predators to early humans 🤷🏾♂️
i love this amazing video, this guy has something that other don't have lol his amazing jokes sometimes are absolutely amazing and cooool. I love this guy seriously amazing youtube channel.
One thing missed is human ability to locate danger even when it's camouflaged. We have very acute vision. And coupling this with our binocular sight and broad color reception allows us to locate something like a camouflaged snake VERY easily. Like very VERY easily in fact. Snakes are one of the few animals that we can almost always detect and identify, regardless of their camouflage. If it is snake shaped, we are genetically wired to see it. The main thing driving this is something you DID hit on, and that's our above average ability to see complex shading. The cylindrical shape of a snake creates an unmistakable image in our brains - even when in our limited peripheral vision. Other animals are much more difficult for us to detect, however, due to having generally more complex shapes that contour with their surroundings better. But snakes, yeah... gotta call you out on that one. We see snakes incredibly well.
Yeah, those snake bites even today mean nothing I guess... We see snakes a bit better because our brain is constantly searching for them since it's one of our biggest evolutionary nemesis for eternity. We are hardwired to see snakes, but it's not that much better than antelope seeing a lion... it's almost never perfect (apart from some insects)
I remember camouflage as this awful big marine. Then again, I don’t consider myself to be overfurnished in the brain department, by any stretch of the imagination.
I gotta be honest. When I saw your thumbnail with 2 images of a tiger with the caption: "what we see", "what they see", I was really expecting to see a very large T-bone steak wearing Bermuda shorts, flip flops and raybans for "what they see"...
Want to point out that chameleons don’t change color to match background. Some species are a usual green but when firing up (stressing) they’ll have patterns. Some are colorful with oranges, reds, blues etc and these colors change also when firing up or when calming down. Temps can also change how vibrant they are, ex a cold chameleon will be much darker than a warmed up and alert chameleon.
I used to play airsoft. Even without a ghillie suit... a simple and effective camo like Canadian CADPAT, I have seen teammates move up, crouch down and stop... As SOON as you stop moving, you become invisible... it's insanely effective. A ghillie suit is the best, it completely breaks your silouhette... if you choose your spot wisely and stay immobile, there is no way anybody can EVER see you...
Hey Joe, I recently traveled to India and actually went on a safari to see bengal tigers. and their camouflage is actually great to hide from people. This is because the dirt and trees that surrounded the forest we were in were ORANGE ! When we were tiger spotting we saw 3 tigers, and it was nearly impossible to make them out on an iPhone camera or in person from 100-200 yards. And if they are near trees they are almost impossible to see from the combination of orange color and shadows
For predators, it doesn’t take them starving to death to drive the natural selection. Simply reproducing less due to less food is enough. For example a pair of brown owls might raise 3 owlets per year while a white pair may only raise one
(1) Good point. (2) i totally misread "owlets" as "omelets" and had a good laugh, so thanks for that, even though it was my bad. xD
They're likely not "reproducing less", more likely less white owlets grow up to full maturity.
I mean---you know what (most) owls do to their weaker babies 🍽️
9:28
@@nuance9000 Owls lay less eggs in the years when food is not plentiful.
@@iprobablyforgotsomething Sometimes owlets end up as omelettes so it works
As a red-green colourblind guy, I’ve found I can see through camouflage much easier than others.
Genetic mistake or evolutionary advantage?
As I understand it, I automatically ignore colours and focus on looking for edges/shapes. This was apparently utilised during WW2 Allied bombing runs as colourblind folk could pick out camouflaged targets. I just use it to find ghillie campers/snipers in video games.
It's a small advantage coming with the big disadvantage of not being able to differentiate colors well. Also, this is a trained advantage that normal trichromats can learn, too.
I'm red/green colour blind and I can often see through camouflage and spot people easily. I don't know how I see them when others can't as I've never had normal colour vision.
@@kevinsyd2012 also born this way and first noticed the difference from normies when watching my missus playing call of duty.
She was taking cover behind a bush and I ask why she isn’t shooting the sniper beside her. Who? Where? I said, the guy in the ghillie clearly in the bush! She doesn’t see or believe me so I say to just shoot the fupping bush.
Low and behold she gets a kill but swears blind she couldn’t make out a player. I was completely dumbfounded but then read that our brains compensate for lack of colour differentiation by focusing on shapes.
Like she could quickly find a green pear in a large display of red apples. However she would struggle to find the pear if the apples were all a similar green. Whereas in both examples I would be looking for the pear shape and find it in much the same time.
@@ooqui I also find I have an advantage in lower light conditions because I naturally look for outlines of shapes.
It also has the massive benefit of not needing to be included in my missus’ decorating discussions/decisions as colours mean little to me.
Do you like this white or this light grey? Yes!!
Best of luck to you hunting down those tigers then!
I've had the opportunity to visit a tiger sanctuary in a jungle in Thailand, and that orange cat is very well camouflaged relative to human vision. It makes sense though when you know about how we see color. The difference between brown and orange that we see is largely contextual, so if you have an environment with patches of brown in it and not just a green screen of grass, orange is interpreted as another shade of brown and the tiger vanishes.
not fortgetting to mention all the different small patches of bright light and dark shadows emerging from the gaps between leaves in the jungle's roof. The varying contrasts make it even harder to unconciously spotting such animals.
I might be wrong, but brown isn't actually a "color"? It's just a darker orange with lighter colors sorounding it, so its more of a contextual color, like you said. Similar to purple, which isn't actually a physical wavelength. Both colors a purely psychological
gunna say it looks pretty good for hiding in fields of dry grass and in dark jungles the orange would blend well with a mix of fallen leaves, bark and shadows.
Tigers are jungle cats. And the jungle floor is an orange leaf litter, striped by the shadows of large ferns. I've seen tigers in that environment, and they're completely invisible, till you actually make out a face staring right at you.
@@NabekenProG87 Brown is actually dark yellow.
I've always wondered why camouflage is spelled camouflage and not .
NICE.
@@samrowe2889 He camouflaged 'camouflage'.
@@samrowe2889 "...and not camouflage." But we're unable to see/read it as it's been camouflaged (hypothetically)...😅😂
@@samrowe2889don’t strain your brain too much lmao
good question
Viceroy butterflies have recently been discovered to also not taste great to predators. It’s Mullerian mimic and tastes just as bad as monarch butterflies. The two species use similar appearances to send the same message of “I taste terrible” reinforcing each other.
Also, it's fascinating how the terrible taste does save the species as a whole but not the individual. It gets chewed up and spit out dead.
Wait,how do scientists know they taste bad?😮
@ they did a test where they presented birds with monarchs and viceroys that had their wings removed and the birds didn’t like eating either one.
@@annekeener4119 I want to see what _a bird not happy with its grub_ looks like. That sounds too specific to google.
Drops the insect and waddles somewhere else probably.
Joe I hope you feel satisfied and happy with your job hosting this channel. You are one of the best video presenters on youtube
Yes, I can watch this channel when I'm upset or anxious and need something comforting, or just because it's really interesting.
@@ChompChompMfkr So true
That's why hunting jackets are red or more recently orange. Humans know you're human so you don't get shot, while the huntee can't see you.
The orange jacket is a bit of "Fudd lore" and is going out of favor. One problem with hunters wearing orange to avoid being shot is what about all the non-hunters who might also be in the area?
Hunters are perfectly capable of holding their fire and only shooting at something they have positively identified is a legal species to hunt. If your view is so bad you shouldn't be taking the shot.
This attitude of "I think I can see something, it doesn't look orange so I'll shoot it" is a terrible idea. Also, red-green colorblindness is really common, orange light is just a blend of red and green light.
When hunting you have to be responsible: be absolutely sure what you're shooting at and position where if you miss any projectile will go in a safe direction. This is why rifle hunters shoot from high ground aiming down, so any miss goes into the ground you can see no one else could be standing.
@@TreblaineWe don't wear orange to avoid being shot by the well trained hunters, we wear them to increase the odds against idiots.
However I do hope the less well trained hunters see your post. ❤
A lot of older military aircraft also used Countershading. The underside was almost always given a light blue-grey color, while the topside was some camouflage depending on where the plane was intended to be used. Naval aircraft tended to use solid colors more, since the ocean doesn't have much of a pattern to blend an outline into.
Sharks also use that same logic for their camouflage.
Plus the water surface and the sky at the horizon are nearly the same color. And the typical naval grey blends in quite well.
And then there is dazzle camouflage, which goes a completely different way. Instead of hiding, try to confuse the enemy about your distance and direction.
hello joe not smart people here
we’re here!
That's why we're here
This comment is on every Be Smart video.
I don't like offensive jokes but okay.
😂😂😂😂
Because red-green colorblind people perceive a narrower range of colors, they’re sometimes less distracted by colors in their environment. This can help in distinguishing subtle variations in texture, brightness, and pattern-traits that often give away camouflaged objects.
One of the big misconceptions about countershading is that it is meant to make the animal harder to see from below, when in reality it makes them all but disappear into the background when viewed from the side. This is especially true in the water.
Another reason why a tiger is orange is because mammals can't synthesize green (or blue) pigment. We don't have the DNA for it. Blue and green eyes are due to the way a certain type of collagen refracts light.
It wouldn't have to be a true green pigment tho. It could just be light refraction, like how most birds do it. Although I assume that it's much more difficult to evolve from hair or skin than it is from feathers
@@novedad4468 but red-ish color pigments seem to be reltively easy to synthesize, thus such pigments are present in many animals, plants and fungi
Bro never heard of the animal called the smurf
Is that why the standard way to make an actor seem like an alien in Sci-fi is to paint them green or blue?
My inkjet printer is full of blue pigment synthesized by mammals
"How do you get this perfect form you have?"
"Lots of dying cousins"
3:41 example of house cat camouflage on the carpet. Such nature selection.
Not really, because there are no predators hunting for house cats so there is no natural selection there. Natural selection will happen mainly with outside cats as they still have predators
@@matthewb840 the joke really flew right over you
@@matthewb840 Natural selection isn't reserved exclusively for prey, all it'd take is the cat to not catch enough food because it doesn't blend in for the cats that DO blend in to thrive and populate more. Or it to fail to catch food for its babies if it's able to blend in somewhat.
@@woomynation It was camouflaged too well.
About tigers, my neighbor used to have an orange cat that use to get out and hide in my bushes and garden. You wouldn't think it, but that cat was hard for my human eyes to spot when he was there.
Another orange cat w
I see what you did there.
Wait.. now I don't.
🎵BILL BILL BILL BILL, BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY!🎵
Hey joe, this is Chris...the guy that was behind you the whole time. I was in the chiaroscuro suit, even in the corner of your office, I left a red pistachio with a blue smiley face as proof.
😮
My seventh grade science teacher needs to see this and give me back the deducted points for saying tigers do have camouflage
Did they *actually* say that? Geez.
@@nobody.of.importanceElementary school teachers are surprisingly science illiterate, with exceptions of course. By about grade 4 our son often knew more about some topics than the teacher. We tried to teach him to listen to what the teacher said and write THAT on the tests.
@@HweolRidda Yeah my 8th grade math teacher had me teach a lesson to the class because she couldn't understand it. I've had very few teachers I think back on and think that they were qualified to teach, it's honestly really sad.
@@josephjoestar953 That is a bit sweeping. Teaching elementary school attracts people who are good at relating to kids and aren't bad at the "soft" subjects like reading and writing or even biology. However as a group they are weak at the mathematically sciences.
Middle school is more of a mixed bag. I give that teacher credit for using you, rather than BSing.
@@josephjoestar953
Next you’re going to say:
“I was a Grade A student who got burnt out and comments on RUclips science videos now”
I think hunting camouflage is also tuned to human vision so we associate it with good camouflage (and buy it). Because it could have orange in it and work fine.
@@chrisoffersen market failure considering that hunting camouflage beeing high vis for humans but low vis for deers solves two problems at once.
They do make deer hunting vests that are orange to protect yourself from other hunters, they are just not as common as others.
Think ginger tom cats?
I asked a hunter friend of a friend once how pink camo could possibly be useful for more than fashion and learned deer don't see red, so we actually have camo that is very visible to an average human and works for deer on the market, and people buy it and use it, but not because it actually often works as well or better and is visible to other hunters for safety, but because of gender norms. It is so weird how humans think.
Nah, an orange camo would still be visible to birds, who can see an even wider range of colors than us, and thus useless for photography.
90s kids like myself had a void once we grew up and no longer had Bill Nye teaching us. 🤕 As adults, Joe fills that void. 🤩
Joe nye
Wow.. that is so true it's kinda creepy. To be fair, Joe more than just fills that void. He overflows it.
@@edenisburning Completely agree! 💯
@@MasterAndyWan 🎵BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL NYE THE SCENCE GUY!🎵
And unfortunately some of us that grew up in the 80's and 90s had people like Ken Ham(young earth religious fundamentalist) brainwashing us to view the world through an Uber pseudoscientific lens based on a bunch of fairy tales. Too bad it took a whole 32 out of the 40 years I've been alive to realize this but at least I grew out of it eventually LOL
Camouflage is literally magic. It plays on our perception on how things work. Some magic tricks use this against us.
It's amazing what the brain sees and doesn't see. Very cool and kind of scary that our brain fills-in/finishes/ignores a lot of the information our eyes gather.
It is cool, but if you think the brain is filling in the blind spot caused by the circular optic disc right smack in the center of your field of vision, it makes more sense.
Your team sucks
@@paulohenriquesantos6505 9-6 with a rookie QB. I will take that. I been watching football 2X you been alive kid.
@@courtney5796 Your team will miss the playoffs this season
Woah-oh-oh-oh, Camouflage
Things are never quite the way they seem
Woah-oh-oh-oh, Camouflage
I was awfully glad to see this big Marine
The way this guy talks, it's as if he knows I'm stoned and is being very courteous to speak at my level.... much appreciated, homie
It's interesting how Zebra camouflage themselves onto their group, the stripes and such when mixed together in a group of zebras makes it quite hard to for predators to pick out individual zebras, it all just looks like one blob of zebra. They not only camouflaged themselves onto their background, they created their own background.
The alternative hypothesis is that the stripes repel biting flies.
@@billyruffian1426 Fairly certain this is the stronger hypothesis at the moment. Or at least it was when I last really looked at the relevant literature a few years ago.
I am a Marine Ecologist though, so I do not keep absolutely up to date when it comes to terrestrial stuff, so things may have changed in the intervening period.
This topic is so fascinating and the lack of to much repeat is so nice to watch. Great job people.
I dont know man. I once saw a video of a tiger walking into some foliage and it just melted into it. It might be even harder for a deer but i think it's pretty hard for humans too
One of my favorite military jokes is the drill instructor saying:
Drill Instructor: “Williams!”
Pvt Williams: “Sir! Yes Sir!”
Drill Instructor: “I did not see you in camouflage instruction today!”
Pvt Williams: “Sir! Thank you Sir!
😄. I paraphrased but that’s the jist and it always makes me smile. Thanks for posting. I’ve always found camouflage to be super interesting.
I would also like one thing pointed out in these videos more. This one scratches a little on it. Humans are unfair. Because of our high inteligence, pretty damn good eyes, and absolutely insane pattern recognition, we can look through camoflage like few if any other animals can. While we do get fooled by it too, it is so much less reliable on us than on most other animals.
If TierZoo has taught me anything: Intelligence is the direct counter to camouflage.
Big thing he missed was saying that the snake was "invisible" when we have been hard wired for millions of years to be able to detect snakes - regardless of however much camouflage they may have. If it is snake shaped, we WILL see it.
@@Jayson_Tatum very true, it is so hardwired into our brain that we will in most cases actually avoid getting bitten, bc subconsciously we recognise the shape of a snake and automatically retract, and that's saying something when snakes have a reaction time of roughly 45ms at their fastest while humans are at about 150ms
@@jamesmnguyen It is. Intelligence really is a hard counter for a lot of things. Which is why we as a species skilled so hard into it. With what out ancestors had, mainly not all that of a great sense of smell, no true natural defences or weapons, hearing that isn’t all that great compared to other animals, and not a whole lot of power? With the evolutionary niche we slid into developing intelligence was basically a forgone conclusion. Because being already pretty smart and nimble with dexterous appendages and good vision, it really was a set up for developing intelligence to compensate for other areas our ancestors lacked in. No natural defense? Well, be intelligent enough to avoid the danger. No natural weapons? Well, there is a whole lot of perfectly fine sticks/rocks lying around. No good sense of smell or hearing? Well, visions is good, so you need intelligence and skill up that pattern recognition to stand in for it. And memory to stay aware of these things despite them only existing when looked at. Also spacial relations and a very good understanding of past present and capabilities to calculate possible futures.
Really, it was a perfect storm that made our ancestors develop exactly the right traits for the kind of intelligence we have.
What really killed it was that our ancestors got forced to become ground animals instead of arboreal, so they suddenly had those nimble hands and arms free to constantly do stuff instead of locomotion. And the incredibly range of motion of their shoulders from originally climbing added in did one thing utterly unique in the animal kingdom. Precisely throwing things with a lot of power.
If you take all that stuff together, you suddenly get in a feedback loop of success after a certain threshold of intelligence is passed. Which favours higher intelligence and rewards it with better survival, and even more sucess. Which leads us to us modern humans, being so intelligent we can repurpose the original hardware for utterly different and originally “unintended” tasks. Which makes us one of the scariest super predators to have ever lived, because even if we are at first unsuccessful, given time we WILL find a solution. Humans are basically the animal equivalent of the “Batman with prep time can beat anyone” meme.
Slight correction: Viceroy butterflies are müllerian mimics, which means that both butterflies having the same patterns may not mean that the viceroy is trying to mimic monarch butterfly and try to look intimidating. Instead it was likely convergent evolution as it is now known that viceroy butterflies are also poisonous to predators, maybe both butterflies almost independently evolved the same patterns to warn the predator.
This explains why a regular squirrel in my yard (I could recognize him by his scruffy tail) was confused when I was passing out Halloween candy in a costume. Normally he runs away from me but couldn't figure me out and got closer than normal.
(IT WAS THE CANDY)
Maybe he did recognize you and thought you looked silly af tbf
@@BikiniBottomBankRobber maybe haha
You can be a sniper in the Army if your color blind, apparently camouflage doesn't work on the color blind.
3:02 did I just get unironically stick bugged
We all did 😔
Mimicry may be the reason why we humans developed dance/makeup, as a way to rhythmically move together mimicking a "large animal" to keep predators away
I expeced Joe to be dressed as Waldo
hehehe
TFW we are Waldo's predator hence he hides so well
Or he is ours
@@MolexGamePlaythat's a great concept for an f-tier horror movie.
@AlexanderWeixelbaumer -- A missed opportunity, for sure. I am now, though, imagining Waldo-Joe but with forest 'camo' green and traffic cone-orange stripes instead of his usual red-and-white shirt and hat. Like some mashup of actual tiger's stripes camouflage and the human fashion green-camo print idea of camouflage. And wow, what an eyesore that would be (once you actually finally spotted him, of course).
4:25 Rush "Counterparts" back cover. 🥳
He immediately starts the video with a bit about camouflage. Meanwhile, my screen: goes black when I hit full screen, then dimmed with YT buttons. When that's over I hear "YOU JUST GOT FOOLED BY CAMOUFLAGE!!"
It's always amazed me how this works.
6:28 you had the perfect opportunity here to explain why hunters wear orange and deer cant see them and you completely missed it.
educated people don't hunt that often
"this picture is what it looks like to us and this other one is what it looks like to them." - they both look exactly the same
That may mean you have colorblindness. They were definitely very different.
9:45 that one butterfly on the right: "OI, stop stepping on me! I'm NOT an actual leaf!"
I did actually see through the disguise in the beginning, but it was 100% because I was looking for something even slightly out of place due to the title.
Yes if you are in the wild, you will not be able to see those animals.
In the video, you KNOW that there is an animal somewhere so you were looking for it, it ain't happening in the wild. 😄
This is all good "Highlights" training
i did but My eyes didn't even get a chance to look at that part before the camera moved on
Great 💯
P.s. Camouflage - without a single word about -- octopus 🤔
The octopus chose all of the above _and_ shapeshifting. They really need a video of their own.
There is a quick video clip of an octopus in the video, but he wasn't specifically talking about octopuses, it was just a visual example of different types of camo.
"Morning, have you got camo clothing?"
"We have it, but we can't find it."
In the military we are taught to apply lighter paint to the more recessed and darker paint to more elevated surfaces in broken patterns utilizing the colors available.
one of the wildest example of using broken patterns to disrupt vision is ww2 naval "dazzle camo" which are bold geometric patterns on ship hulls. the goal wasn't to be invisible, but to confuse the estimation of the direction of travel, distance, and plainly what part of the ship you were aiming at by disrupting the reading of volume through shading. it was made obsolete by the time radar was a thing, but it was pretty effective.
0:49 is such a bill nye moment
Is that the angry guy who hates climate change?
Bill the pseudo scientist
1:57 The dad joke😭
What’s awesome is the whole ‘slight changes over time, favouring those who survive’ is the same way neural network coding works and is a really intuitive way for people who don’t understand evolution to see something work. ‘Can this neural network learn to beat mario’ ‘beat snake’ ‘beat etc.’.
-3.8 billion BC. One microbe just accidentally enveloped another and started reusing its molecular components. And that's how the predator-prey relationship got started.
Not including chameleon in camouflage video is a sin.
But, video was awesome 👍
Finland mentioned! 🇫🇮🫡
Interesting thing to mention is that not all camouflage is visual for example mimics of poisonous butterflies often mimic the flight of the species they are mimicking and orchid mantises smell more like orchids than orchids do
10:26 mordecai
That bit on the bright orange Tigers reminded me of that one "Humans are Space Orcs" story or whatever it's called.
Where an entire planet of some friendly aliens are being destroyed by what they're describing as an undetectable, unstoppable, Predator style monster army so they beg humans for help. Humans show up thinking it's going to be an impossible mission, only to find out the evil aliens are bright neon pink and freeze still when they think they've been spotted.
The friendly aliens could only see in infrared or something so the evil aliens could change their surface temps to go invisible for a while, but as the heat built up they turned neon pink in the visible spectrum to us.
Camouflage is amazing. But I do wonder wouldn't tigers be better if they were green, I know they don't have to be green. Because the deer only have two colour cones. But surely getting as close to the colour of the vegetation as possible would make it even better.
evolution is pretty much a game of "good enough," and works with what it's given. Unless green fur/melanin randomly mutates, that's not gonna happen. And as far as I'm aware, there... really aren't any mammals with green fur - not unless it's from something like algae growing on them, and there are a LOT of species that would love to have green fur to camouflage themselves. So seemingly it's a very difficult thing to randomly mutate.
Couple that with orange fur being apparently 'good enough' that it works, then even if green fur did randomly mutate it might not actually have all that much of a selection pressure placed on it that would counteract random chance and genetic drift (it's all well and good to be perfectly adapted to your environment but if you have a freak accident and never pass on those genes, then it doesn't matter at all).
tl;dr version: It's a lot of effort for little gain.
Long version: I actually KIND of have an explanation for this. Mammals typically get their color from varying ratios of two pigment molecules, eumelanin and pheomelanin. The former has a brown color, and high amounts appear black. The latter has a red-yellow tinge, and is responsible for red hair in humans. Generally evolution "prefers" to tweak the ratios of those two pigments as it's relatively very easy to do genetically, needing only a small number of mutations. To create a whole new pigment would likely take a copy and many, MANY mutations to land on 'green' proper. As there's no pressure to evolve that new color (See hypotheticalaxolotl's reply), it just found a pattern that works "good enough".
TLDR: green seems not to be an option for mammals.
Interestingly, many species of sloth appear green, but it's not a natural pigment, it's algae growing in their fur. :B Works out for the sloth, helps with camouflage.
@marcosolo6491 -- That's very helpful, as a layman's terms metaphor, thank you.
That was an intricate “get stick bugged”
Actually... for smaller things with rapid reproduction it doesn't take millions of years to change... I've seen bugs around my place change shape over a decade, and well viruses change basically on a yearly basis...
Yeah, it takes a lot of generations, but not necessarily a lot of time in absolute terms.
Neural-network AIs are developed through simulated evolution, and they can go through the whole generational cycle of iterating and testing in seconds, with hundreds or even thousands of instances per generation. Which allows them to home in on whatever their designer is selecting for, extremely rapidly.
Its a common error. I always encourage students to forget about using years as a measure for evolution, but to use generations instead. Its a generational process after all.
Had a thought about just this regarding blackbirds and their bright orange beak. Its their most apparent feature, and when it flies into the bushes your brain automatically looks for the beak, when it would be more helpful to look for a black blob - which makes for great camouflage!
Probably a mundane realization, but it was a Eureka moment for me lol.
9:20 well of course "in future generations most bugs will still be based", most bugs are still based right now!
Great video!! I don't understand at all how something like mimicry evolves. It's truly baffling to me - oh! you cover it!!
do you know how evolution works???
How lovely! Learning evoIution is an adventure!
your shark example is wrong. its got a light belly and dark back cause its an ambush predator so if its below the prey, the darker back fuses it with the dark depths, and if its above the prey its white belly is harder to pick out in the bright water with sun illuminating the background.
The ambush predator part isnt as relevant right? Genuinely asking. Isnt it more of an ocean swimmer thing e.g. penguins (predator and prey), manta rays, etc
@@KY-jd1nl thats something ive heared in several documentaries so im just assuming its correct.
@@dervakommtvonhinten517 ...have you tried thinking about/answering the question on your own? Or was that just a long-winded way of saying "idk" im confused
E.g. you can google penguins, manta rays, killer whales, dolphins etc to see many forms of marine life have a white belly and darker top that ARENT ambush predators. in fact, I would think the majority of sea life with larger "surface areas" that don't swim along the seabed or in the deep ocean have similar countershading (what it's called apparently)
@@KY-jd1nl the light belly dark back is just to camouflage yourself. WHY you evolved that camouflage can be different you know.... a praying mantis is camouflaged just like a stick insect. one is prey, one is a predator...
@@dervakommtvonhinten517 idk if yt auto removed my reply but... Have you never tried coming up with an answer or opinion on your own? Youre allowed to research too ofc, just like how you got your original post from somewhere else. Or was that just u saying "idk and idc."
There are many marine creatures that are not ambush predators with the same type of coloring you described e.g. manta rays, blue whales, dolphins, etc. seems like basically most things that have a large "horizontal" surface area and dont swim mostly along sea floor or in deep ocean
9:46 It worked so well, it even fooled it's own kind! @ butterfly landing on another butterfly on the right.
We should keep in mind that all animals are always going through an evolutionary process....some rapid, some less so. Humans are animals too, and so we should ask, are we evolving "better" or "worse"? Depends on how one defines better or worse...
Most people agree that humans have more or less "stop" evolving. We do however experience genetic drift, which means random mutations that don't benefit/hurt us will stick around and spread out.
@jamesmnguyen
"Most people" are often wrong. The only evidence they have is based on the idea that we are already at the "top" of the evolutionary journey, which is not true...because there is no "top" of evolution.
Yes, we are able to avoid further evolution by contesting against natural forces, but that's because there aren't any ice ages currently happening, nor other globally effective extremes. What we do have however, is this advanced society, which I believe will have a massively outsized effect if something happened that forces us back to stone-age level technology. Until that happens, our natural inclination to help each other out will be subverted by the desire to accumulate insane amounts of wealth and comforts, which creates generation after generation of people less inclined/able to weather the dangers we still face from global disasters (I'm not talking about tsunamis, volcanoes, etc, but truly global events, i.e., ice ages). That kind of thing we cannot stop or mitigate, we'll just watch it coming our way. Whatever plans we may develop would be required to survive 20,000 to 50,000 years, and we haven't survived even 10,000 years...most humans would perish, causing a huge shift of the abilities we've developed over time.
We are still evolving, it just takes more than 100 years to see it. We can see evolution happening after watching 100 generations of germs or bugs, but 100 generations of human = 3,000 years.
@@Name-ps9fx Excellent reply.
@@jamesmnguyen As an Evolutionary Ecologist I can safely tell you that most people does not include a single member of my field.
Not one.
I was a Navy SEAL candidate. Dont ask me how, but after MEPs failed me for colorvision, I still recieved a SEAL contract to join the Navy despite my colorvision. I eventually got "medically Disqualified" from the SEAL rate during the first week of boot camp so i decided to get out and attempt another job in a different branch that wouldnt give me undesignated. Anyway, I found that colorvision deficiency is actually a superpower and was sought out in point men during WW2 because of their ability to differentiate shapes more easily (i think). Anyway, If youre colorblind and wanna so SOF, go Ranger or SF. Plenty of opportunities.
The Viceroy butterfly is also distasteful, so it's actually an example of Mullerian mimicry, not classic Batesian mimicry. The Viceroy and the Monarch evolved to look similar to each other and predators avoid both because eating either one tastes gross.
08:36 Very well put, Joe. Understandable how previous generations would assume such incredible feats of nature must have been the work of said 'devious artist or sculpture', as you put it... I also think perceptions of natural selection can be impacted by our difficulty evaluating very large numbers; in recent years, behavioural economics has provided some insights on that and similar phenomena
The owl thing is completely false by the way. There's been no change whatsoever in the average coloration of owls in Finland.
Hello joe, been watching your videos for years now. Love your work❤
Hm, you know if someone walked around in the woods in a ghille suit they would be mistaken for bigfoot, but if they went to the store in a realistic bigfoot suit they'd just be given weird looks. No one would suspect a real bigfoot buys groceries
One of the most informative videos I watched in recent times
What you took advantage of was a moving camera along with a low frame rate to create a blurry image.
That tooth pick demo made it so much clear how evo works. It is an auto process. The one who stick out the most are picked, while the other ones stay alive longer and their genes spread.
Joe Cena
It’s fascinating to learn the reason behind these extreme natural camouflages! Sometimes we don’t give due credit to the smartness of many species.
If taking the shape of your predator’s predator is not a sign of intelligence I do not know what is! There are no tales or anecdotes passed on in these species, it’s all either just some sort of higher mathematics or extreme bioscience at play - either way I find this engrossing 😊
oh ok 👍
now i understand how they got those very detailed camouflage..i used to think that the cells are responsible for changing how the animals look, i mean, its kinda like the cells decides how would these animals evolve to look like how their surroundings look like..i did not understood "natural selection"..so its really about which of the species survive and breed until they got the "perfect" form..
4:51 I saw It immediately
You should have seen everything immediately, none of the animals shown should have been an issue to spot for us
Pattern recognition baby, human brains always looking for patterns to easily identify it. There’s also that theory that we develop an ability to such a degree because of snakes, due to them being predators to early humans 🤷🏾♂️
@@DareChimeralmaooo
LITERALLY SHNKHGS LIKE BRO WHAT R U ON ABOUT 😭
how do I see you everywhere
i love this amazing video, this guy has something that other don't have lol his amazing jokes sometimes are absolutely amazing and cooool. I love this guy seriously amazing youtube channel.
0:01BULLSHIT, where are your feet? that isnt camouflage, thats bad green screen usage...
Bro really went "yeah this might imply intelligent design. But nah it was entirely random". Made me giggle.
Second
Actually you were third but you were first to cry for the attention mommy didn't give you because she doesn't love you
I saw you immediately 😂
When hunting it’s mostly important to break up your outline than anything else
We weren't fooled by camouflage, we were fooled by video editing. That was done so poorly..
?
He was there in the original shot though. Just because it wasn’t a single take for the zoom in doesn’t mean you weren’t fooled lol
He's pretty obvious the whole time, you just didn't look for him
One thing missed is human ability to locate danger even when it's camouflaged. We have very acute vision. And coupling this with our binocular sight and broad color reception allows us to locate something like a camouflaged snake VERY easily. Like very VERY easily in fact. Snakes are one of the few animals that we can almost always detect and identify, regardless of their camouflage. If it is snake shaped, we are genetically wired to see it. The main thing driving this is something you DID hit on, and that's our above average ability to see complex shading. The cylindrical shape of a snake creates an unmistakable image in our brains - even when in our limited peripheral vision. Other animals are much more difficult for us to detect, however, due to having generally more complex shapes that contour with their surroundings better. But snakes, yeah... gotta call you out on that one. We see snakes incredibly well.
Yeah, those snake bites even today mean nothing I guess...
We see snakes a bit better because our brain is constantly searching for them since it's one of our biggest evolutionary nemesis for eternity.
We are hardwired to see snakes, but it's not that much better than antelope seeing a lion... it's almost never perfect (apart from some insects)
4:55 In this photo the snake is easy to see, but I'm sure it's more effective outside the photo. Rattlers in the desert sure can be.
I remember camouflage as this awful big marine. Then again, I don’t consider myself to be overfurnished in the brain department, by any stretch of the imagination.
Great visualization for natural selection
I gotta be honest. When I saw your thumbnail with 2 images of a tiger with the caption: "what we see", "what they see", I was really expecting to see a very large T-bone steak wearing Bermuda shorts, flip flops and raybans for "what they see"...
i’m seeing everything as soon as the images come up but also understand what you are talking about… can i go to the next class??
Brilliant demonstration of evolutionary process! Thank you.
Terrific - a really interesting analysis. A mention of disruptive or 'dazzle' camo on WWI and II aeroplanes and ships would have been interesting too.
Want to point out that chameleons don’t change color to match background. Some species are a usual green but when firing up (stressing) they’ll have patterns. Some are colorful with oranges, reds, blues etc and these colors change also when firing up or when calming down. Temps can also change how vibrant they are, ex a cold chameleon will be much darker than a warmed up and alert chameleon.
incredible, thank you
I used to play airsoft. Even without a ghillie suit... a simple and effective camo like Canadian CADPAT, I have seen teammates move up, crouch down and stop... As SOON as you stop moving, you become invisible... it's insanely effective. A ghillie suit is the best, it completely breaks your silouhette... if you choose your spot wisely and stay immobile, there is no way anybody can EVER see you...
Calf love is so cool and it’s very cleverly designed, good job nature.
Hi Joe love the longer video and great information!👍😀😀😀
Truly fascinating stuff!
Great show and great episode.
Hey Joe, I recently traveled to India and actually went on a safari to see bengal tigers. and their camouflage is actually great to hide from people. This is because the dirt and trees that surrounded the forest we were in were ORANGE ! When we were tiger spotting we saw 3 tigers, and it was nearly impossible to make them out on an iPhone camera or in person from 100-200 yards. And if they are near trees they are almost impossible to see from the combination of orange color and shadows
Nice, was the trip worth it?
Walking sticks in blackberry patches is a really good one 9:26