The 19th century is called the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry and the century of Russian literature on a global scale. It should not be forgotten that the literary leap that took place in the 19th century was prepared by the entire course of the literary process of the 17th and 18th centuries. The 19th century is the time of the formation of the Russian literary language, which took shape largely thanks to A.S. Pushkin.
But the 19th century began with the heyday of sentimentalism and the formation of romanticism. These literary trends found expression primarily in poetry. Poetic works of poets E.A. Baratynsky, K.N. Batyushkova, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.A. Feta, D.V. Davydova, N.M. Yazykov. Creativity F.I. Tyutchev's "Golden Age" of Russian poetry was completed. However, the central figure of this time was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
A.S. Pushkin began his ascent to the literary Olympus with the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" in 1920. And his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" was called an encyclopedia of Russian life. Romantic poems by A.S. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" (1833), "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", "Gypsies" opened the era of Russian romanticism. Many poets and writers considered A. S. Pushkin their teacher and continued the traditions of creating literary works. One of these poets was M.Yu. Lermontov. His romantic poem "Mtsyri", the poetic story "Demon", many romantic poems are known. Interestingly, Russian poetry of the 19th century was closely connected with the social and political life of the country. Poets tried to comprehend the idea of ​​their special purpose. The poet in Russia was considered a conductor of divine truth, a prophet. The poets urged the authorities to listen to their words. Vivid examples of understanding the role of the poet and influence on political life countries are poems by A.S. Pushkin "Prophet", ode "Liberty", "The Poet and the Crowd", a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "On the Death of a Poet" and many others.
Along with poetry, prose began to develop. The prose writers of the beginning of the century were influenced by the English historical novels of W. Scott, whose translations were very popular. The development of Russian prose of the 19th century began with the prose works of A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Pushkin, under the influence of English historical novels, creates the story "The Captain's Daughter", where the action takes place against the backdrop of grandiose historical events: during the Pugachev rebellion. A.S. Pushkin did a tremendous job exploring this historical period. This work was largely political in nature and was directed to those in power.
A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol identified the main artistic types that would be developed by writers throughout the 19th century. This is an artistic type extra person”, an example of which is Eugene Onegin in the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the so-called type " little man", which is shown by N.V. Gogol in his story "The Overcoat", as well as A.S. Pushkin in the story " Stationmaster».
Literature inherited its publicism and satirical character from the 18th century. In the prose poem N.V. Gogol's Dead Souls, the writer in a sharp satirical manner shows a swindler who buys up dead souls, Various types landlords, who are the embodiment of various human vices (the influence of classicism affects). In the same plan, the comedy "The Inspector General" is sustained. The works of A. S. Pushkin are also full of satirical images. Literature continues to satirically depict Russian reality. The tendency to depict the vices and shortcomings of Russian society - characteristic throughout Russian classical literature. It can be traced in the works of almost all writers of the 19th century. At the same time, many writers implement the satirical trend in a grotesque form. Examples of grotesque satire are the works of N.V. Gogol "The Nose", M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Gentlemen Golovlevs", "History of one city".
Since the middle of the 19th century, the formation of Russian realistic literature has been taking place, which is being created against the background of the tense socio-political situation that developed in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. A crisis in the serf system is brewing, and contradictions between the authorities and the common people are strong. There is a need to create a realistic literature that sharply reacts to the socio-political situation in the country. literary critic V.G. Belinsky marks a new realistic trend in literature. His position is being developed by N.A. Dobrolyubov, N.G. Chernyshevsky. A dispute arises between Westerners and Slavophiles about the ways historical development Russia.
Writers turn to the socio-political problems of Russian reality. The genre of the realistic novel is developing. Their works are created by I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, I.A. Goncharov. Socio-political and philosophical problems prevail. Literature is distinguished by a special psychologism.
The development of poetry somewhat subsides. It is worth noting the poetic works of Nekrasov, who was the first to introduce into poetry social issues. His poem “Who is living well in Rus'?” is known, as well as many poems, where the hard and hopeless life of the people is comprehended.
The literary process of the late 19th century discovered the names of N. S. Leskov, A.N. Ostrovsky A.P. Chekhov. The latter proved to be a master of the small literary genre- a story, and also an excellent playwright. Competitor A.P. Chekhov was Maxim Gorky.
The end of the 19th century was marked by the formation of pre-revolutionary sentiments. The realist tradition was beginning to fade. It was replaced by the so-called decadent literature, hallmarks which were mysticism, religiosity, as well as a premonition of changes in the socio-political life of the country. Subsequently, decadence grew into symbolism. This opens a new page in the history of Russian literature.

ABOUT invisibility, as a means of eluding the gaze of the enemy, dreamed of even the composers folk tales. Pushkin in "Ruslan and Lyudmila" sang the fabulous cap of invisibility, which rendered such a service to the young captive of Chernomor:

Lyudmila twirled her hat

On the eyebrow, straight, sideways

And put it on back to front.

So what? O wonder of the old days!

Lyudmila disappeared in the mirror.

Turned over - in front of her

The former Lyudmila appeared.

This fabulous plot is designed and modern English writer- science fiction writer Herbert Wells, who tried in The Invisible Man to draw a scientific basis for an ancient dream. His reasoning is very instructive. The novelist tells of a remarkable scientist who discovered a way to make his body invisible. Here is what the inventor told his doctor friend about the essence of the discovery:

“You know that bodies either absorb light, or reflect it, or refract it. If a body does not absorb, reflect, or refract light, it cannot be seen by itself. You see, for example, an opaque red box because the paint absorbs some of the light and reflects (scatters) the rest of the rays. If the box did not absorb any part of the light, but reflected it all, it would appear to be a brilliant, white box, silver. The diamond box would absorb little light, its general surface would also reflect it a little; only in places, on the edges, the light would be refracted and reflected, giving a brilliant appearance of sparkling reflections - something like a light skeleton. A glass case would be less shiny, less visible than a diamond case, because there would be fewer reflections and fewer refractions. If you put a piece of ordinary white glass in water, and especially if you put it in a liquid denser than water, it will disappear almost completely, because the light is refracted and reflected very weakly when passing from water to glass.

- Yes, - said the doctor, - all this is very simple and in our time is known to every schoolchild.

- And here is another fact, also known to every schoolchild. If a piece of glass is crushed, turned into powder, it becomes much more visible in the air, becomes an opaque white powder. This happens because pounding multiplies the glass facets that produce reflection and refraction. A plate of glass has only two sides, and in a powder, light is reflected and refracted by every speck of dust it passes through, and very little of it penetrates through the powder. But if white ground glass is put into water, it immediately disappears. Pounded glass and water have approximately the same refractive indices, so that when passing from one to the other, light is refracted and reflected very little.

By putting glass in a liquid with the same refractive index, you make it invisible: any transparent thing becomes invisible if it is placed in a medium with the same refractive index. Glass could also be made invisible in air: it was necessary to arrange it so that its refractive index was equal to that of air, because then, passing from glass to air, the light would neither be reflected nor refracted at all.

“Yes, yes,” said the doctor. “But a man is not like glass.

No, it's more transparent.

And this is what the naturalist says! Have you really forgotten physics in ten years? Paper, for example, consists of transparent fibers: it is white and opaque only because glass powder is white and opaque. Oil white paper, fill the gaps between the fibers with oil so that refraction and reflection occur only on the outer surfaces, and the paper will become transparent, like glass. And not only paper, but also fibers of cotton wool, fibers of linen, wool, wood, our bones, muscles, nails and nerves! In a word, the whole composition of a person, except for the red substance in his blood and the dark pigment of his hair, everything consists of a transparent, colorless tissue: this is how little makes us visible to each other.

These considerations are absolutely correct. Experiments proving them are sometimes performed by nature itself; come across animals devoid of coloring substances, the so-called albinos. In an albino - a frog - through the transparent skin and muscles, the insides and skeleton are visible; through the abdominal wall you can see how the heart beats, the intestines contract.

It is certainly true that a transparent object immersed in a medium with the same refractive power becomes invisible. In practice It is sufficient that the difference in refractive indices does not exceed 0.05. Ten years after the above lines of Wells were written, the German scientist Shpaltegolts, professor of anatomy, almost put the same ideas into practice, though not on living organisms, but on dead preparations. One can see these transparent preparations of body parts, even whole animals, in many museums.

The method of preparing transparent preparations, proposed (in 1911) by prof. Spaltegoltz, consists in the fact that after a well-known treatment - bleaching and washing - the preparation is impregnated with methyl ester of salicylic acid. It is a colorless liquid with strong refraction. Thus prepared preparation of rats, fish, different parts the human body, etc., is immersed in a vessel filled with the same liquid. At the same time, of course, they do not strive to achieve complete transparency of the preparations (they would then become completely invisible, and therefore useless for the anatomist). But if desired, it would be possible to achieve this.

Of course, this is far from the realization of Wells' utopia about a living person, transparent to complete invisibility. Far from it, because it is necessary, firstly, to find a way to impregnate the tissues of a living organism with an enlightening liquid, without violating its functions. Secondly, the tissues of these preparations can be invisible only as long as they are immersed in a vessel with a liquid of appropriate refraction. They can only be invisible in air if their refractive index is equal to that of air, and we do not yet know how to achieve this.

The hero of Wells' novel knew how to achieve this and, according to the novelist, managed to make his body completely invisible to others. Whoever read this novel, or saw the corresponding film, knows what power the hero of Wells achieved thanks to his invisibility. He quietly enters any room and steals things with impunity. Elusive, thanks to his invisibility, he successfully fights a crowd of armed people. Threatening people with inevitable heavy punishment, an invisible person keeps the inhabitants of the whole city in complete submission. No one escapes his revenge: he can harm everyone, while remaining elusive and invulnerable himself. “The city is no longer under the rule of the queen! - declares invisible in his order. He is under my control. Today is the first day of the first year of the new era, the era of the Invisible. I am the Invisible First!”

The power of the invisible man is shown in the novel with such persuasiveness that it leaves no trace of doubt in the mind of the reader. However, the novel owes this not to the scientific impeccability of reasoning, but to its artistic merit. A great master of narrative style, Wells skilfully obscures one extremely important physical question, on the correct resolution of which the whole structure of the novel depends.

Indeed, the fate of the invisible man will appear before us in a completely different light if we ask ourselves next question: being invisible to others due to his perfect transparency, could the hero of the novel himself see the world? The answer is that according to the laws of physics, a transparent person should be deprived of the ability to see. The invisible must be blind.

It is instructive to understand this curious physical problem in more detail. Let us recall why the hero of the novel is invisible. Because all parts of his body - including the eyes - became transparent, and, moreover, their refractive index is equal to the refractive index of air. What is the role of the eye? Its lens, vitreous moisture and other parts refract the rays of light so that an image of external objects is obtained on the retina. But if the refraction of the eye and air is the same, then this eliminates the only reason, generating refraction: passing from one medium to another, equal refraction, the rays do not have their own direction, and therefore cannot be collected at one point. The rays must pass through the eyes of an invisible person completely unhindered, without being refracted or even lingering in them due to total absence coloring matter. The energy of these rays does not produce any material changes in the organism of such a person and, consequently, is unable to evoke any image in his consciousness. The invisible one is doomed to blindness! All the advantages of it are useless. Dreams of unlimited power dissipate without a trace. The invisible one would be completely helpless: he would grope about the streets, begging for alms that no one could give to the invisible beggar.

Wells did not solve the problem of invisibility as a source of power, did not show the way to master the invisibility cap. A transparent person would have acquired his invisibility at too high a price - at the price of complete blindness, extreme helplessness.

The English novelist made this blunder, in all probability quite deliberately. There is a well-known poetic device, usually used by Wells in his fantastic works: to obscure for the reader the main defect of construction with an abundance of real details. In the preface to the American edition of his fantasy novels, Wells writes: “Once the magic trick has been done, everything else must be shown to be plausible and ordinary. One should hope not for the strength of arguments, but for the illusion created by art.

But there is another way to solve the same problem - the way on which the art of war began and which is predicted by nature itself. It consists in painting objects in a color that makes them invisible to the eye. Animal world makes extensive use of it in the struggle for existence.

What the military calls a camouflage color has been called protective or protective coloration by zoologists since Darwin's time. There are thousands of examples of such protection in the animal world. Desert animals have for the most part the characteristic yellowish color of the desert; you find this color in a lion, and in a bird, and in a lizard, in a spider, in a worm, in all representatives of the desert fauna. On the contrary, the animal population snowy plains the north - whether it be a dangerous polar bear or a harmless loon - are naturally endowed with a white color that makes them invisible against the background of snow. Butterflies and caterpillars living on the bark of trees have the appropriate color, reproducing color with amazing accuracy. tree bark. Insect collectors know how difficult it is to find them, thanks to the perfect camouflage color that nature has endowed them with. Try to catch a green grasshopper in the meadow at your feet - you will not distinguish it against a green background, as if absorbing it without a trace.

Marine animals living among brown algae have a protective brown color that makes them elusive to the eye. In the zone of red algae, red is the predominant protective color. The silvery color of fish scales is also protective. It protects the fish both from birds of prey, looking out for them from above, and from predators of the water element, threatening them from below. The water surface has a mirror-like appearance not only when viewed from above, but even more so when viewed from below, from the water column itself (total internal reflection); silvery fish scales merge with this shiny metallic background. And jellyfish and other transparent inhabitants of the waters chose colorlessness and transparency as a protective color, making them invisible in the surrounding elements.

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Protective coloration is a protective color and shape of animals that make their owners invisible in their habitats. In fact, this is a kind of passive defense against natural predators. Protective coloration is combined with a certain behavior of its owner. Usually the animal hides against a background that matches its color, in addition, it takes a certain pose. For example, many butterflies settle on the surface of a tree in such a way that the spots on their wings coincide with the spots on the bark, and the bittern, which nests in the reeds, in case of danger, stretches its body along the stems of plants.

The role of passive protection in animal life

Protective coloration is especially important for the protection of organisms at an early stage of ontogenesis (larvae, eggs, chicks), as well as for adults leading a sedentary mode of existence or at rest (for example, sleep) for a long period. In addition, it plays an important role in a rapidly changing environment. So, in many animals, the possibility of changing color when moving to another background is due. For example, in the agama, flounder, chameleon. IN temperate latitudes many animals and birds are susceptible seasonal change colors.

It is customary to distinguish between three types of patronizing demonstration and mimicry. All of them arise as a result of the interaction of living beings in biogeocenosis against the background of certain environmental conditions. Protective coloration is a biocenotic adaptation developed as a result of the coupled evolution of predators and prey. In addition to patronizing, there are also warning, attractive and dismembering colors.

Protective coloring

As mentioned above, the protective coloration of animals always bears a resemblance to the environment in which they live. For example, desert lizards or snakes have a yellow-gray color to match the vegetation and soil, and the inhabitants of snowy regions have white feathers and fur. This disguise of animals allows them to remain invisible to enemies. It may be to some extent the same for the inhabitants of completely different natural areas. For example, praying mantises or grasshoppers, lizards or frogs living in the grassy cover of the middle zone are characterized by green colors. It also predominates in insects, reptiles, amphibians, and even in some species of tropical forest birds. Often, protective coloration may include a pattern. For example, ribbon butterflies have an ornament of many stripes, spots and lines on their wings. When they sit on a tree, they completely merge with the pattern of its bark. Another important element protective coloring is the counter-shadow effect - this is when the illuminated side of the animal has more dark color than the one in the shade. This principle is observed in fish that live in the upper layers of the water.

seasonal coloring

For example, consider the inhabitants of the tundra. So, partridges or arctic foxes in summer have a brown color to match the color of vegetation, stones and lichens, and in winter it becomes white. Also inhabitants middle lane, such as foxes, weasels, hares, ermines, change their coat color twice a year. Seasonal coloration exists in insects as well. For example, a leaf-winged plant with folded wings is remarkably similar to a tree leaf. In summer it is green, and in autumn it becomes brown-yellow.

Frightening coloration

Animals with bright colors are clearly visible, they often keep open, in case of danger they do not hide. They do not need to be careful, as they are often poisonous or inedible. Their warning coloring signals to everyone around - do not touch. Most often, it includes various combinations of such colors: red, black, yellow, white. Examples include a number of insects: wasps, bees, hornets, ladybugs, etc.; and animals: dart frogs, salamanders. For example, poison dart frog slime is so poisonous that it is used to treat arrowheads. One such arrow can kill a large leopard.

Let's look at what is meant by this term. Mimicry in animals is the resemblance of defenseless species to species that are well protected. A similar phenomenon in nature was first discovered in South American butterflies, so in flocks of hyliconids (inedible for birds) whites were seen, which were very similar in color, size, shape and manner of flight to the first. This phenomenon is widespread among insects (glass butterflies disguise themselves as hornets, syphid flies as wasps and bees), fish and snakes. Well, we have considered what mimicry is, now we will deal with the concept of form, dismembering and changing coloring.

Protective form

There are many animals in which the shape of the body is similar to various objects of the environment. Such properties save them from enemies, especially if the shape is combined with a protective color. There are many types of caterpillars that can stretch out at an angle to a tree branch and freeze, in which case they become like a twig or knot. The resemblance to plants is widespread in tropical species diabolical, cicada adelungia, cycloper, acridoxena, etc. With the help of the body, a sea clown or a rag-picker horse can be disguised.

Dissecting coloration

The coloring of many representatives of the animal world is a combination of stripes and spots that do not correspond to the shape of the owner, but merge in tone and ornament with the surrounding background. Such a coloring, as it were, dismembers the animal, hence its name. An example would be a giraffe or a zebra. Their spotted and striped figures are almost imperceptible among the vegetation of the African savanna, especially at dusk, when the hunt comes out. A large masking effect due to dismembering coloring can be observed in some amphibians. For example, the body of the South African toad Bufo superciliaris is visually divided into two parts, as a result it completely loses its shape. Many also have dissecting colors, which makes them invisible against the background of fallen leaves and variegated vegetation. In addition, this type of disguise is actively used by the inhabitants of the underwater world and insects.

changing color

This property makes animals hardly noticeable when the situation changes. There are many fish that can change their color when the background changes. For example, flounder, thalassoma, sea needles, skates, dogs, etc. Lizards can also change their color, this is most pronounced in the tree chameleon. In addition, the octopus mollusk changes its color in case of danger, it can also skillfully disguise itself as soils of any color, while repeating the most cunning seabed ornament. Various crustaceans, amphibians, insects and spiders masterfully manage their colors.

The means of passive protection include such structures and features that only by their presence determine the greater probability of saving the life of an individual in the struggle for existence.

Animals often develop hard covers - a kind of protective formations such as shells. In vertebrates, this is the bony covering of reptiles, which forms the true shells of turtles, are just a few examples of this kind.

To avoid predators, the main passive-defensive reactions are also freezing, flight, hiding in shelters, and other appropriate behavioral techniques.

a) Adaptive coloration is one of the important passive means of protecting organisms.

Protective coloration is often especially important for protecting the organism in the early stages of ontogeny - eggs, larvae, chicks, etc. Thus, the eggs of birds nesting openly in the grass or on the ground always have a pigmented shell that matches the color of the surrounding background. In large birds, predators, and also in species whose eggs are in closed nests or are buried in the soil (as in reptiles), protective coloration does not develop.

Often the coloration of animals resembles the color of the environment in which they live. Desert snakes or lizards are grayish-yellow to match the color of the surrounding soil and vegetation, and animals that live among the snows have white fur or plumage.

Coloring that matches the main color of the environment and helps the animal to remain invisible to the enemy is called patronizing, or protective. This type of coloration may be to some extent the same for animals of completely different geographical natural zones. For example, grasshoppers or praying mantises, frogs, toads or lizards living in the grassy cover of the middle zone are characterized by a green color. It also prevails in the coloring of insects, amphibians or reptiles of tropical forests, where even among birds there are many species with green plumage.

An important element of protective coloration is the principle of countershading, in which the illuminated side of the animal's body is colored darker than the one in the shade. This protective coloration is found in fish swimming in the upper layers of the water. The dark, but illuminated by the sun's back and the light, but shaded belly make these fish hardly noticeable to predators both from above and from below.


Warning coloration. Very bright coloration is usually characteristic of well-protected, poisonous, burning, stinging, etc. forms. Bright coloring warns the predator in advance about the inedibility of the object of their attack. The biological role of such coloring is well studied in experiments. Individual "trial and error" eventually causes the predator to give up attacking a prey with a bright color (Fig. 11.5). Selection contributed not only to the development of poisonous secrets, but also to their combination with bright (usually red, yellow, black) color.

Seasonal color. The role of protective coloration in seasonally changing conditions is great. For example, many animals of middle and high latitudes are white in winter, which makes them invisible in the snow (arctic fox, hare, ermine, ptarmigan, etc.). In a number of animals, a rapid (within a few minutes) adaptive change in body color is observed, which is achieved by redistribution of pigments in the chromatophores of the skin or other body integument in flounder (Pleuronectes platessa), agama lizard (Calotes versicolor), chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon) and other animals.

Dissecting coloration. The coloration of many animals is a combination of spots and stripes of contrasting color, which do not correspond to the shape of the animal, but merge with the surrounding background in tone and pattern. This coloring, as it were, dismembers the body of the animal, hence its name. Zebras and giraffes have dissecting coloration. Their striped and spotted figures are almost imperceptible against the background of the vegetation of the African savannas, especially at dusk, when predators come out to hunt. With the help of dissecting coloration, a great masking effect is achieved in some amphibians. Thus, the body of the inhabitant South Africa toad (Bufo superciliaris) is visually divided into two parts, due to which the animal completely loses its shape. Many snakes have a luxurious dissecting coloration, among them the Gaboon viper. A bright geometric pattern erases the contours of the snake's body and makes it completely invisible against the background of colorful vegetation and fallen leaves. This type of coloration is also typical for many inhabitants of the underwater world, especially for coral fish. Representatives of the bristletooth family, for example, angelfish or pennant bristletooths, are distinguished by the most variegated coloration. Dissecting coloring breaks the impression of the contours of the body. In this case, not only the contour of the animal merges with the surrounding background, but it is also difficult to determine the outline of vital organs, such as the eyes in vertebrates. In many unrelated animals, the same masking of the eye with dark spots and stripes is observed.

Intimidating coloration. Animals with bright colors are clearly visible against the surrounding background. As a rule, such animals keep openly, do not hide in case of danger. They don't need to be careful or hurried, as most of the time they are inedible or poisonous. Their bright coloring is a kind of warning to others - do not touch!

Frightening, or warning, coloring is various combinations of the most contrasting colors: red, black, yellow, white. Those species of animals whose skin glands secrete poisonous mucus also have a frightening color, for example fire salamanders or tree frogs. The slime of poison dart frogs is so poisonous that the natives use it to treat the tips of hunting arrows. One poisoned arrow can kill a large animal like a leopard.

Some animals with a frightening coloration, such as boxfish, have a hard "shell" that protects them from attack by other fish.

Mimicry. Mimicry is the resemblance of defenseless and edible type with one or more representatives genetically not related species well protected from predator attacks.

IN last years many interesting examples mimicry. One of them is an example of Müllerian mimicry in fish. Blenny (Meiaeanthus nigrolineatus) on early stages development looks like juvenile cardinal fish from the Apogonidae family, the only way whose protection is the formation of a flock. In the early stages, the coloration of juveniles in blennies is close to that of cardinals: dark stripes on a light background on the sides of the body and a dark spot with bright edging at the base of the caudal fin. In adult dogs, the color is gray-blue and monotonous. Adult dogs are very poisonous, while juveniles are slightly poisonous. Juveniles of the dog are saved only in flocks of cardinals, and adult forms form their own flocks.

Milk snake mimics coloration

Changing color. Nature has endowed some animals with the ability to change color when moving from one color medium to another. This property serves as a reliable protection for the animal, since it makes it hardly noticeable in any environment.

In addition to the flounder fish, well-known for its rapid color change, the thalasso fish changes its color to match the environment, which is blue in the water column and turns yellow at the bottom. Spikes, seahorses and blennies are instantly masked: in the zone of red algae they become red, among green algae they become green, in a yellow environment they become yellow.

Some lizards also change color. This property is especially pronounced in the chameleon tree lizard. A quick color change from green to yellow or brown makes it almost invisible on the branches among the foliage. In addition, the chameleon can scare off the enemy by quickly changing the color of contrasting colors, turning from bright green to red or black.

Masterfully control their colors, some amphibians, crustaceans.

b) Protective form.

There are many animals that are similar in shape to any object in the environment. Such a resemblance often saves the animal from enemies, especially if this animal also has a protective coloration. With the help of a protective form of the body, some fish are also masked. Appearance such fish are quite peculiar, and their names are original, for example, sea clown, rag-picker horse. The sea clown lives in Sargassum seaweed, which it moves with the help of pectoral and pelvic fins. Due to its color and bizarre shape, it is completely lost in the thickets. Little resembles a fish and a rag-picker. Its body is equipped with numerous spikes and tape-like leathery outgrowths, they fluctuate all the time, and therefore it is almost impossible to distinguish fish from algae.

b) Intimidating posture

Many animals, which do not have sufficient strength to repel the enemy, still try to scare him away, taking various frightening poses. For example, a round-eared lizard spreads its legs wide, opens its mouth to the limit and stretches the parotid folds, which are filled with blood and together with the mouth create the impression of a huge mouth. An even more intimidating effect frilled lizard. Taking a frightening pose, she suddenly, like an umbrella, opens the skin membrane located around her neck. The unexpected appearance of a brightly colored collar (cloak) surrounding a wide-grinding mouth scares off many of her enemies.

Among snakes, cobras, collared snakes, and especially the gray tree snake, in which the shape and color of the front of the body change dramatically when scaring the enemy, are interesting with a frightening pose. In addition, the snake sticks out a long red tongue and throws it over its head.

c) fading

A defensive tactic for some animals is the posture of complete immobility. So, when they see the enemy, a running hare or deer freezes in place. Because of this, they can go unnoticed. The freezing instinct is well developed in birds. Night birds, such as bitterns or nightjars, freeze for a day. This behavior is clearly expressed in solitary birds during the incubation period. So, a woodcock sitting on a nest, noticing the danger, presses tightly to the ground and freezes. The concealing coloration and motionless pose make it completely invisible.

There are animals that, at the moment of danger, fall into a state of stupor. A classic example is the behavior of the opossum. Not being able to escape from the enemy in time, the animal falls on its side and becomes motionless, simulating death. The attacker, having sniffed the prostrate body, usually moves away, and after a while the opossum "comes to life" and flees. This behavior may not be pretense, but the animal's shock reaction to a critical situation.

The impression of death is also created by certain reptiles, such as pig-bearing snakes, which, in case of danger, lie motionless on the ground with their belly up.

d) Autotomy

The original defensive technique in animals is autotomy - the ability to instantly throw off a certain part of the body at the moment of nervous irritation. This reaction is typical, for example, for many lizards. When the attacker grabs the lizard by the tail, it leaves it to the enemy, while she runs away. Self-mutilation occurs not consciously and not from the fragility of the organ (it is very difficult to tear off the tail of a dead lizard), but under the influence of nervous irritation. Pain caused to the tail leads to a sharp contraction of certain muscles, and the tail is automatically dropped. The torn off organs continue to move for some time: the discarded limbs contract, the tentacles and tails writhe, attracting the attention of the attacker. Thanks to this animal manages to escape.

In some animals, autotomy is associated with regeneration - the restoration of lost organs, for example, in lizards.

e) Flight rescue, flight

In the struggle to preserve life, some animals use techniques that are completely uncharacteristic of representatives of their class. So, among fish there are species that have adapted to flight and use it as a way to protect themselves from attack. Such flyers include, for example, fish from the flying fish family and the wedge-bellied family. Fleeing from overtaking predators, they slip out of the water. Flying fish spread their huge pectoral fins in the air, and some species also have ventral fins, and glide above the water, usually flying up to several tens of meters. The wedge-bellies stay on the surface thanks to the quick and frequent strokes of the pectoral fins and can fly up to five meters.

There are "gliders" among reptiles, for example, a flying dragon lizard. This reptile has false ribs with a skin membrane. When the dragon is in a calm state, they are tightly pressed to the body. In case of danger, the lizard spreads them, forming a semblance of two wide semicircular wings, and rapidly glides over a distance of up to 30 meters. In flight, decorated tree snakes also escape from attack. They flatten the body, spreading the ribs and drawing in the stomach. Having given the body a flat shape, the snakes either fly to another tree or gently glide to the ground. They use gliding flight, escaping from enemies, and tree frogs from the family of copepods. Between the fingers of these amphibians there are membranes. Spreading their fingers wide and stretching their membranes, the frogs easily, as if on wings, plan down.