It happens to the best of us: You’re ready for dinner, the aroma of fresh pizza and fries fills the house. Before settling down at the table, you take a quick detour to the fridge to get the ketchup – and you can’t find it. You were pretty sure the ketchup was there the day before. You check everywhere, but you just don’t see it. You conclude that someone must have finished it, shrug, and get a new bottle from the pantry. (You should always have backup ketchup for emergencies.) And then, a certain unrecorded number of slices and some fries later, you go to put the ketchup in the fridge only to find the one that you had been looking for earlier sitting there, as smug as a plastic squeeze bottle can be.
Things have an
uncanny way of avoiding our detection (or we have an uncanny way of not
noticing what’s in front of us). Either way, the ability to conceal is a
crucial survival skill to many animals (and, apparently, ketchup).
Things Are
Not As They Seem
In the natural
world where the strongest and fastest are favored, sometimes the best strategy
to make it through another day is to be the smartest. By keeping out of sight,
many weaker, slower creatures manage to stay off the menu of their predators.
Decorator crabs, for instance, choose small shells, sand, and pieces of coral
to glue onto their hard exoskeletons in order to blend into their surroundings.
When they hold still, they are virtually impossible to find on the seabed, thus
protecting them from becoming a snack food. Stick insects’ thin, elongated
bodies greatly resemble the branches among which they hide. They often gently
sway back and forth in the breeze, in tune with the twigs around. Even the
black and white stripes on zebras are a method of defense. Though the color
contrast clearly does not help them blend into the backdrop of the savanna, it
does prevent predators from picking a single zebra to target. Since it’s so
hard to tell where one zebra begins and another one ends, attacks are effectively
averted.
This strategy,
called camouflage, not only helps protect animals from being eaten; it also
helps hungry predators sneak up on their prey. The tables are turned when the
hunter blends in with its background. A perfect example is how polar bears’ fur
masks its presence so completely that people have a hard time seeing it even
when they know it’s there! Its black nose is the single part of its body that
stands out against the surrounding white emptiness, and the bear covers its
nose with its paw when lying in wait for dinner to unknowingly stroll nearby.
Another effective
technique is called countershading, which is when the skin is darker on top and
lighter on the belly. In this way, when seen from above, the animal fades into
the dark bottom of the ground beneath them and, when seen from below, blends in
with the lightness of the sky overhead. This method of double camouflage is
essential for creatures who live underwater, in a world between waves and sand,
and who can encounter enemies from all directions.
More Than
Meets the Eye
As brilliant as
the disguises with which Hashem gifted creatures, the most ingenious are the
ones that allow them to pretend to be something they are not. Owl butterflies
would be a tasty treat except that they intimidate their would-be diners by
displaying large circular patterns on their wings that look exactly like the
eyes of an owl. Their attackers’ fear of tangling with a much larger predator
keeps the vulnerable butterflies out of harm’s way.
A few completely
harmless snakes have almost identical color banding as very dangerous ones. For
example, the non-venomous scarlet kingsnake has a distinct white-black-red-black-white
pattern, while its potentially lethal cousin, the coral snake, has black-yellow-red-yellow-black
bands. Unwilling to take a chance with their ability to correctly ID snakes,
predators simply avoid both. (People who live in the vicinity of snakes often
rely on the rhyme: “Black-on-yellow kills a fellow, white-on-black’s a friend
of Jack.” I don’t know who Jack is, but I personally recommend staying away
from any snakes you don’t know.) By mimicking something menacing, animals can
enjoy the benefits of security even though they cannot produce their own
toxins.
Masters of
Disguise
Without a doubt,
the king of camouflage is the chameleon. This small lizard’s skin color changes
by dilating and shrinking its skin cells allowing different pigments to
materialize that match the background. It is fascinating to note that they
don’t “choose” their “wardrobes” based solely on the need to hide; their
coloring also communicates their moods, often adopting a palette that reveals
if they are stressed or content. Since they are cold-blooded creatures that
cannot regulate their own internal body temperatures, they are able to
consciously darken their skin if they need to absorb more heat and lighten it
if they get too hot. Other creatures, such as the octopus and cuttlefish, also
adopt color tones to match their environment, quickly switching between a wide
variety of hues and patterns.
Blessings
in Disguise
Animals don’t have
a monopoly on concealment. Camouflage artists were first employed in World War
I. The advent of airships and aerial photography to locate weapons and soldiers
made it vital to effectively hide them. As such, painters and set designers for
theaters had the opportunity to use their creative talents to serve their
country and save lives. They modeled their mottled brown, tan, and green colors
after ones they observed in nature in what was later known as “The War of
Deception.” The department was headed by Barry Faulkner, who was famous for
having painted the murals in the National Archives Building in Washington,
D.C., and sculptor Daniel Chester French, who created the statue of Lincoln in
the Lincoln Memorial. The “camoufleurs” covered artillery with stained material
and crafted paper mache heads to draw enemy fire, causing them to reveal their
location. They even made artificial horse carcasses to leave next to ruined
weapons wagons in which one of their own snipers could hide.
Hide and
Seek
Purim is layered
in disguise. From the fact that Hashem’s name is noticeably missing in the Megillah to the custom of dressing up to
celebrate our ostensibly natural (though clearly miraculous) salvation, the
very name “Esther” means “the hidden one.”
Like the
children’s game of hide-and-go-seek, the real reason to hide in the first place
is to eventually be found. Through the story of Purim, Hashem offers us
insights on how to peek behind the mask and find Him in our daily lives. One
method of seeing Hashem’s hand for yourself is to write a “megillah” of your own life. In doing so, you will eventually be
able to observe the strings being pulled behind the scenes. In the Megillah, hindsight gives a clear
picture of the nine years of seemingly disconnected events in the Purim story
that were camouflaged by time and only uncovered when chronicled.
So too, the
experiences of your own life that were once separated by months or years will
suddenly join together to weave a story of Hashem as a Master Craftsman, Who
was always there between the lines. Of course, we can always make excuses and rationalize
the help we get from Above as “coincidence,” but then we would be falling prey
to the pretense. It is our choice to see beyond the illusion; it is only a
smokescreen, after all, easily dissolved by knowing what to look for and
keeping our eyes open. We live in a world where harmless snakes can look lethal
and polar bears are invisible. Hashem is waiting for us to pull back the
curtain to reveal the deeper reality of His love.
Debbie
Glazer lives in Pikesville with her family and teaches language arts in Bnos
Yisroel High School. She can often be found either writing or reading and loves
to share her passion for the written word with others.
