Attenborough’s Life in Colour
Sir David Attenborough explores how species use their colour to deceive...
SUNDAY 7 March, 7pm BBC1 Factual
Sir David Attenborough reveals how some animals camouflage themselves, like the Bengal tiger using its orange fur to hide from its colour-blind prey. Meanwhile, the young male Augrabies lizard in South Africa delays developing rainbow tones so that it resembles a female and avoids fighting stronger rivals, and crab spiders in Australia use colour tricks to lure prey.
Camouflage can prove vital in the animal kingdom, for predators that blend into the background to fool their prey, and vulnerable species that do the same to avoid being eaten!
In the second and final episode of Life in Colour, Sir David Attenborough highlights how the colouring of some hunters helps them make a successful kill, while others can alter theirs for the same reason. The crab spider in Australia turns yellow or white to match the
flower it is on and snare an unsuspecting insect, while in India, the Bengal tiger’s vivid tones are hard for its prey, the chital deer, to detect.
‘The tiger’s orange fur looks green to chital deer, who have only two types of colour sensors,’ reveals Sir David. ‘The deer are effectively blind to red and orange, so the tiger’s nearly impossible for them to register.’
Sir David also examines how the black and white stripes of zebras in Kenya’s Maasai Mara cause a confusing optical illusion that is key to their survival.
‘When the zebras move, the contrasting stripes create “motion dazzle”, making it difficult for predators to focus on one target,’ he explains. ‘Even four times fewer flies land on zebras than on their plainer neighbours!’