Coincident disruptive coloration

The attitude and very striking colour-scheme thus combine to produce an extraordinary effect, whose deceptive appearance depends upon the breaking up of the entire form into two strongly contrasted areas of brown and white.

[2] Coincident disruptive coloration is seen in other amphibians including the common frog, Rana temporaria, in which the dark and light bands that cross the body and hind legs coincide in the resting position, joining separate anatomical structures visually and breaking up and taking attention away from the body's actual outlines.

The eye has a distinctive shape and dark coloration dictated by its function, and it is housed in the vulnerable head, making it a natural target for predators.

The first experiment presented wild insect-eating birds with edible pastry targets resembling moths, with or without coincident disruptive patterns.

[7][8] In the words of the camouflage researchers Innes Cuthill and A. Székely, Cott's book provided "persuasive arguments for the survival value of coloration, and for adaptation in general, at a time when natural selection was far from universally accepted within evolutionary biology.

Hugh Cott 's drawings of 'coincident disruptive coloration' in the frog then called Megalixalus fornasinii formed "persuasive arguments" [ 1 ] for natural selection. Left: active; right: at rest, marks coinciding. [ 2 ]
Cott noted the mechanism when he saw Dendropsophus leucophyllatus , the clown treefrog, and saw its similarity with the distantly related Megalixalus .
Forewing pattern of many moths such as Biston strataria , the oak beauty moth, coincides with pattern on the narrow margin of hindwing visible at rest.
Disruptive patterns on underside of orange-tip butterfly Anthocharis cardamines coincide across fore- and hind-wings.
The jack-knifefish, Equetus lanceolatus , has a strongly disruptive pattern on body and through the eye, forming a disruptive eye mask .