Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

Insects are always tiny and have many huge predators. In order to survive, they have furnished with various kinds of self-protection mechanisms through millions of years’ evolution. Camouflage is the most distinguished one among them. Camouflage of insects, as a tactic of defense, can be defined that “Adult insects resemble a whole host of objects and backgrounds, from leaves to bird droppings” (Insects [PC], 2007). Insects which use camouflage look like things in its environment. They may look like leaves, twigs or rocks. It is an efficient way to confuse enemies and protect themselves. The less insect-like they look, the more chance of survival they will get. By blending themselves into their surroundings, they adequately use ambient resources provided by plants such as trees, flowers or grass. As a result, camouflage makes it possible that insects do not have to waste energy for struggling and time for fleeing so that they are able to use saved time to disguise themselves because they almost have no chance of running faster than their predators. Basically, insects resemble or imitate plants and become inedible to the predators with the help of camouflage. Stick insect is a good example to demonstrate this. They are quite famous for its camouflage. Literally, stick insects look like sticks and they spend most of their time hanging on branches and therefore they look like inedible twigs in any position. Usually stick insects are green so that they can easily become part of a branch. Since they are too weak to protect themselves, they use camouflage as a protective method. When danger threatens, they stretch its body away from the branch and remains rigid and still, like a twig or stick, until the danger has passed. Even if they move, they sway slightly, as if they are taken by wind.
From what I have mentioned above, we can draw the conclusion that camouflage plays a significant role in the self-protection mechanism of insects. Camouflage offers the...