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Camouflage is, in any case, a surviving strategy for animals and it's practiced either by the predators and by the preys, in all animal orders.

The PREDATORS use it to hide in their surrounding environment to make themselves invisible to their preys and surprise them with a sudden attack when they pass too close, not noticing their presence.
This allows a great energy saving by the predator that can only make a simple jump of few metres to catch its prey, instead of long and tiring pursuits, because they can't rely on a great speed and resistance, and they even stay still all the time waiting that their victim passes near their mouth; at that point, they make a jump and catch it: this is the case of a fish like the ANGLERFISH that has developed a skin totally similar to the bottom of the sea, full of algae, stones and shells and remains for many hours on a spot, totally invisible to the other fish; then, to attract their preys near its enormous mouth, it shakes a little skin appendix just close to it, simulating a little juicy worm.

When the unaware victim gets close, believing to have an easy lunch, the anglerfish opens in a little fraction of second his mouth and swallows it.
Sometimes, the predator fails but, in most of cases, the attacks don't give any hope.

Among mammals, many FELINES lie in ambush in the vegetation only the necessary time to surprise their victims, approaching more and more them like LIONESSES in Africa, and PUMAS, among the desert rocks of America.

This strategy is instead very little present among predator birds like EAGLES, HAWKS, the FISHING BIRDS that can attack with their exceptional sight, high speed and coordination in nose diving over the victim, always slower, moving on the ground or in the water.

Reptiles like SNAKES, instead, use this strategy very frequently and as the victims is close to them (snakes have thermal sensors available) they only need a sudden bite on it; then, they only wait some seconds that their poison kills or paralyzes the prey, to start swallowing it.
Surely, camouflage rewarded all those individuals that had a skin or fur more similar to the colours of their habitat; they had more success in their chase, so, surviving and reproducing more easily.

The PREYS, instead, use this strategy, well knowing their inferiority in speed and dimensions; they totally hide in their place, also avoiding to move; because the sight of many predators is very sensible to movement.
Many animals have a defensive camouflage only in the

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