find the kitteh
September 29, 2011 • 1:01 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Below the greenery and below the road on the right.
Yep. My cat loves hiding in plain sight.
Took me minutes (actually wife points it out!). Amazing! the color blend!
That kitteh is nearly transparent! in front of the rocks, center right.
hehe found it!
OK – what did I win?
Well camouflaged … I scanned right over it several times …
I have two possibilities, and one of the possibilities is the head of the other….
Nah, you’ll know for sure when you see it; it’s a tabby. Meow.
And then it jumped right out at me! (And my other two ideas were wrong….)
and my comment was too late– congratz at finding the kitteh!
Immediately beside the ramp on the right side. Took 5 seconds to spot.
I looked for a minute to no avail. Then I Ctrl +, and spotted it in no time. I really love my new 23″ monitor.
Wow.. even *after* reading the comments it took me a few minutes. But once you see him, he just pops right out. He almost even looks like he’s glowing.
Since I have a herd of rescued cats, easy to spot – right by the rocks near the bushes. Looks to be a tabby.
Funny thing – the more you enlarge the picture the harder the kitteh is to see. Pixellation is better camouflage than a tabby coat.
Found it! But had to use the aid of a magnifying glass.
Cool, that’s really quite effective camouflage 🙂
Very good. Curiously I was just watching the Monty Python sketch “How not to be seen” on youtube. Consequently, I suspect there are several cats concealed in the scene.
I can convince myself there’s another at roughly center of lower right quadrant.
PS Of course, I saw the virgin on my toast this morning too.
Took me about 15 seconds to find it. Now that I’ve found it, my eyes go right to it and it’s pretty obvious. Before I found it, it was well-concealed.
That was the funny part of me. I saw this several weeks ago. I knew pretty much where the kitten was, but it still took me a while this time. After I knew (again) it was easy.
Even when you said it wasn’t a trick, I couldn’t bring myself to really look at the photo.I was too flinchy waiting for something to pop out and scream at me. Day-um I hate those things.
Catoflauge
Took about ten seconds to spot him. My eyes focused on the spot right where he’s at after a few seconds of scanning, I saw his rear side and thought that rock is a little furry-looking, and only after my eyes focused on that spot for a few seconds did I finally make out his face. (And now it’s obvious.)
Reminds me a photo I once took of an alligator at a distance of about three or four feet, while canoeing by myself in the swamp. (Yes, I canoed right up to him to snap the photo. Fearless, me.) After I developed the film, I saw this one that looked like a fallen tree and set it aside (never remembered taking THAT), and then when I was done looking through them I wondered what the hell happened to the closeup of the alligator I defied death for. It was only after staring at that “tree” one for like five more minutes did I finally make out that the whole friggin’ photo was an alligator. His natural camo was so good I hadn’t recognized him in a print of his own closeup that I myself took!
Our human abilities to spot face-like patterns in nature always amaze me. We can recognize Jesus instantly no matter what kind of grilled-cheese burn mark or knotted wood pattern he’s hiding in, but finding a real cat in a field of grass when he’s not even hiding? THAT is hard.
I can see a second kitteh at the end of the low wall? Looks like he is wearing a collar. Maybe I am getting old!
I saw several things that could have been cats, but I did spot the pair of ears (before I enlarged the photo). But I couldn’t tell for sure until I blew it up. The cat seems well-camouflaged for a dry tan environment, which I assume is similar to the north African home of wild cats most closely related to domestic cats. That would explain the various orange cats. But housecats come in several color patterns. Does that reflect interbreeding with other wild relatives in southern Asia, or simply selective breeding by human cat fanciers?
Probably a mixture of both. Once cats became domesticated, they didn’t need to be camouflaged as well as wild cats (as anyone who owns an outside cat knows, coloration doesn’t seem to have any impact on their hunting ability, so I suspect that it’s actually for defense).
I used Irfanview to magnify the pic to full-screen and spotted the kitty almost immediately. Good camouflage, though.
That took a while, he sure blends in.
I’m surprised you couldn’t tell – it’s she.
Beautiful animal, magnificent “design” but just way too efficient.
I suspect the absence of small birds and lizards in the picture is not a matter of camouflage, but hyper-efficient predation.
Here, in marsupial declining Australia we marvel at their beauty but rue the results.
Hiding behind the guy with glasses and stripey shirt and hat.