This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Morris.

I think if you ask somebody on the street, what is camouflage? I believe the most common answer would be to say, well, it's a figure and it's being hidden

by being blended with its background.

Scientists today call that background matching. I call that high similarity

camouflage. That's Roy Barron's. I'm Roy Barron's and I teach in the Department of

Art at the University of Northern Iowa. I teach graphic design and the history of design.

Barens is also one of the foremost camouflage experts.

Well, I wouldn't go that far.

I would.

I do.

High similarity or blending is just one type of camouflage.

It's kind of the boring one.

But another type of camouflage that you can find both in nature and in military use

is disruptive camouflage.

I call it figure disruption.

Figured is disrupt disruption.

This disruption because it breaks up the figure.

It's the opposite of high similarity camouflage. It's high difference.

So you're making it very difficult for us to look at the figure and to see it as only a single continuous thing.

Proption, Rub disruption.

Zebra stripes have long been thought to be a form of disruptive camouflage.

The stripes make it hard for a predator to distinguish one zebra from another when the zebras are in a large

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