Looking for a word

[lillibet]

I'm looking for the word (it's one word, I've known it before, I'll recognize when I see it again) that means disruption of form by pattern, like a zebra's stripes, or certain kinds of camouflage. It's not about blending into the background, but rather breaking up the visual outline.

Anyone? Bueller?

Comments

Saved!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

My hero!

Thank you so much!

Re: Saved!

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Are you two pulling our legs? m-w.com's failure to have heard of that word suggests that maybe you are.

Re: Saved!

[dpolicar]

heh.. whaddayaknow, it's not in webster. Nor in any other online dictionary I looked in. But I assure you, this is not a hoax.

In its original formulation, crypsis is the property that cryptic things have, which is that their superficial patterning interferes with their interpretation.
"Cryptic" has entered the common vocabulary in an extended, metaphorical sense.
Apparently "crypsis" has dropped out of it as far as online dictionaries are concerned, though it is still in use as a term of art (or at least was a decade ago).

Googling "crypsis" turns up a couple of references to it in this context, as well as a bunch of distracting ones that refer to a species of plantlife with the same name.

The best one I could find is http://www.animalbehavioronline.com/lizard.html.

http://www.coralrealm.com/fish/leaffish.ihtml attempts to define it, but does not distinguish between crypsis and camouflage. http://www.dimijianimages.com/Crypsis-mimicry-page1/Crypsis-and-mimicry-page1.htm has some interesting examples but no definition, and also fails to distinguish between crypsis and mimicry (and, for that matter, camouflage).

http://grove.ufl.edu/~kiltie/egg/eggtext.html makes frequent reference to crypsis in the correct sense, and includes some interesting stuff on how to define it in signal-processing terms and its effects on bird survival, but never gets around to providing an English-language definition.

http://lagamba.free.fr/# is downright bewildering.

Re: Saved!

[dpolicar]

some time later, I'm concluding that crypsis and camouflage have more or less permanently collided their meanings in the literature since I last paid attention... I don't really see anyone distinguishing the "break-up-the-contour" kinds of body patterning from the "look-like-your-background" kinds of patterning.