Originally Posted by
Nomercy448
I noticed that one of your poll responses is centered around different prey types - and frankly, I'd consider anything in this line to be pure hokum. We don't know enough about the visual acuity, color and depth perceptions, or the ability of the animal brain (talking about multiple animals here) to process and compile viewed objects into "visual" images.
Plus, I hunt the same territory within the same season for different game. If I have the option to have ONE set of camo that blends into the terrain and fools ALL animals, why would I spend double or triple the cost on multiple sets to blend into the terrain and fool one specific species at a time?
I would have to disagree with your premise that we don't know enough about animal vision to produce camouflage effective against them.
The vertebrate visual system is well understood and differences between animals are usually confined to differences in spectral sensitivity and maybe polarisation sensitivity in birds and fish. The actual hardware sitting behind the eye is much of a muchness.
In general, camouflage that works really well against humans will work against most mammals because we have greater visual acuity and broader spectral sensitivity. Birds, however, have broader spectral sensitivity and better colour discrimination and so we need to be careful generalising about pattern effectiveness. That said, camouflage is seldom broken through colour contrast because motion and luminance contrast are much greater cues. Only in the situation in which you are motionless, and perfectly matched in brightness against your background should you start to worry about colour.
The answer is probably to make camouflage that works against turkeys which have excellent ultraviolet vision and decent spectral discrimination up into the green/yellow portion of the spectrum (same as us humans). Almost every other species has "worse" vision so good bird camouflage will be good against humans and deer etc.
One additional thought is that anyone who hunts birds should probably make sure they don't wash their clothes using detergents containing brightening agents as these usually contain a lot of UV pigments and any camouflage pattern will be rendered useless as you will look very bright to the animal you are hunting. Whilst deer cannot "see" ultraviolet but they are sensitive to it in a way that humans are not (unless you have had a cataract lens replacement as some of the polymers used are UV transparent).
Sorry, I'm rambling now and I'm sure that I'm not saying anything that you you don't already know.