For animals like zebras, being conspicuous is the best way to avoid becoming dinner. New research shows how it helps soldiers and citizens hide in plain sight
TO BECOME invisible, first make yourself conspicuous. It sounds absurd, especially once you learn that this concept was the brainchild of an eccentric American artist. Now, more than a century after it was put forward, the idea is finally being tested. The findings have revealed surprising insights into how camouflage fools – or fails to fool – the eye of the beholder.
In 1909, the prevailing belief was that animals hid themselves by matching their surroundings. Then the painter and naturalist Abbott Handerson Thayer suggested a different mechanism was at work: highly conspicuous markings, such as the zebra's stripes and the oystercatcher's black-and-white plumage, are actually disguises. Predators, he reasoned, ...
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