Amazing animal camouflage

Earlier this evening I was checking my blog stats and saw a referral blog called “the conservation report.” I clicked on link and found a really interesting post about animal camouflage and leaf mimics. One of the first photos was of a leaf insect similar to the one I photographed at the Butterfly Pavilion and blogged about a few weeks ago. See that posting here.

Buck Denton’s posting about animal camouflage on his blog, The Conservation Report, is fascinating and well worth viewing. The Dead Leaf Butterfly is amazing!

Giant Leaf Insect

By far one of the coolest bugs at the Butterfly Pavilion—a Giant Leaf Insect (Phyllium giganteum).

Females can be brown or green and grow up to five inches long. I found a brown-colored leaf bug mimicking a leaf blowing in the wind on youtube.com here.

The one I photographed below did the same dance inside a wind-free terrarium. Isn’t it neat how the edges of its body replicate the decay in a real leaf?

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