Animal Camouflage Activity

Camouflage is a defense mechanism and an attack tactic that animals use to blend into their surroundings. Animals use camouflage to hide their identity, location, and movement. This tactic allows for predators to sneak up on prey and for prey to hide from predators. There are several different forms of camouflage: mimicry, disruptive coloration, warning coloration, and countershading. Mimicry occurs when an animal acts and looks like another animal. Disruptive coloration occurs when the location and the identity of an animal are hidden by a coloration pattern. Warning coloration occurs when animals flash their bright colors warning others of their toxins. Countershading is when the top of an animal is darker than the bottom. An art project is illustrated below too better teach how animals are able to camouflage themselves.

What you will need:

• Sticks and Leaves

• Printer

• Printer Paper

• Animal Silhouettes

• One Side of a Cereal Box

• Scissors

• Green, Brown, Light Green, and Grey Paints

• Crayons

• Elmers glue

• Hot glue

1. Go out and collect your leaves, sticks, and any additional elements that you would like to add to your project

2. Print out some animals such as snakes and lizards in various sizes.

3. Cut out your animals.

4. Cut off one side of a cereal box.

5. Paint the cereal box side using the light green, brown, green and grey paints with random strokes

6. While your paint dries, color the animals that were cut out using greens and browns

7. Once the paint is dry, glue on your animals and help the animals blend in by hot gluing your sticks and leaves over the animals