Desert camouflage and what wildlife see. Issue 8 (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kuhne, Wendy W; Duff, Martine C; Salvaggio, Katie; Halverson, Nancy V; Staggs, Ronald
• Is Part Of: NIR news. Volume 28:Issue 8(2017)
• Page Start: 4
• Page End: 10
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: Camouflage -- desert -- blue wavelength -- animals -- near infrared; Near infrared spectroscopy -- Periodicals; 543.5
• DOI: 10.1177/0960336017738177
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0960-3360

Abstract

Desert, desert-scrub, savanna and sandy beach, and lakeshore environments can be particularly tricky in terms of camouflage selection due to their low vegetative density. Therefore many companies focus on the development of paint color schemes that match the vegetation and the desert soils/sands. However another factor in the consideration of which camouflage to purchase may lie in what the animal can see. White-tailed deer and similar large mammals have been shown to have three classes of photo pigments that are sensitive to the range of blue to yellow-green during day light hours and blue to blue-green at night. Six commercially-available camouflage patterns were investigated to determine if the reflectance characteristics measured in the laboratory and under field conditions were elevated in the blue range and perhaps more likely to be seen by wildlife. The camouflage patterns were evaluated against standard vegetation indices including normalized difference vegetation index, soil adjusted vegetation index, enhanced vegetation index, and simple ratio. Only two of the patterns (S4 and S5) possessed a reflectance more like vegetation. Patterns S4, S6, S3, and S2 all showed only slight elevations in the blue wavelength range which could only have been detected by near infrared measurements instead of visual observation by the human eye.