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Camouflage is the one evolutionary trait I will graciously acknowledge. I've seen enough animals in camouflage. Take the Arctic Snowshoe Hare. It is a very large, good eating rabbit. It is also an amazing runner, having to out run foxes, lynx, and wolves. Some of the rabbits will take off at the sight of man or wolves. Any attempt of chase is useless and stupid.

The Arctic Hare also have a distinct camouflage seasonal coat. It is gray with a white underbelly in the summer. The tips of the ears remain black in both seasons. The coat become white, snow white in the winter. Many hares like to sit beside a boulder or a tree and remain motionless as a predator comes by. They will sit so still with a wide stressed out eye. It will watch every move the enemy makes. At the slightest hint that the predator has seen it or is on it's scent, it will bolt and dash for th hills.

Another common camouflage wearing animal is a bird. This is the Rock Ptarmigan of the arctic. The male is a handsome bird and wears a red patch over it's eye. If men had more sense they would take to painting their eyebrows red. Or not.

In the summer, the ptarmigan is a lovely mottled gray with a brownish above coat. They are extremely hard to spot in the summer. The hen especially as she broods on her nest. She will sit quietly, hugging the ground as though she were just another glacial smoothed rock, overgrown with lichen. In winter, both male and female coats become white and they can be near impossible to spot in overcast conditions.

The rabbit grows new gray fur under its old white coat. It shed it's white coat in the spring. By fall, the white coat will have weathered enough to become white. The ptarmigan is a grouse and it moults its plumage in the spring replace them with reddish brown summer camouflage. By winter, the entire plumage except the tail feathers turn white.

Camouflage is a great thing. It is especially common in prey species, but foxes also take on camouflage. Many insects, fish, invertebrates, even highly developed human snipers adopt camouflage.

Learn more about this author, Jobie Weetaluktuk.
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