Many animals have coloration that shifts depending on the angle from which they are viewed, and this may help them to avoid predators.

This 'interference coloration' has evolved several times in beetles, birds, fish and other creatures, but it is not clear why. Thomas Pike, now at the University of Lincoln, UK, trained laboratory Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) to peck at moving targets on a screen. When the targets changed from green to blue as they moved across the screen, the quails required many more pecking attempts to successfully 'capture' the mock prey. They were also less accurate with their pecks than when the targets stayed the same colour.

The findings suggest that this kind of coloration impairs a predator's ability to accurately locate prey.

Biol. Lett. 11, 20150159 (2015)