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 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 greyish-yellow to match the color of the surrounding soil and vegetation, while animals that live in the snow 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 geographic natural areas. 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. rainforest, where even among the 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 invisible against the background of vegetation. 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. So, the body of the toad (Bufo superciliaris) living in South Africa 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 characteristic of many inhabitants. 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, such as fire salamanders or poison dart frogs, also have a frightening coloration. 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 such 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 of mimicry have been uncovered. One of them is an example of Müllerian mimicry in fish. The blenny (Meiaeanthus nigrolineatus) in the early stages of 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 situation.

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. The appearance of such fish is quite peculiar, and their names are original, for example, a sea clown, a 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.

MBOU "Sosnovo-Ozerskaya middle comprehensive school№2"

Ecological conference within

Republican internship site

research project

Disguise

animals

Completed by: Gruzintseva Liza,

student 4 "A" class,

Head: Chernoyarova N.S.,

Primary school teacher

2013

Disguise

Target: find out what methods of disguise animals and plants use in nature.

Tasks:

What is the disguise of animals and plants,
Learn how to disguise animals
Learn how to camouflage plants,
Find out the meaning of camouflage for animals and plants.

animal coloring

word disguise came from the word mask - i.e. make invisible to the eye. This means that the disguise of animals is associated with the color of their outer covers (wool, skin, feathers, etc.). Some animals have a very bright color, while others are painted in modest colors. Why? Obviously xThe nature of coloration has a certain biological significance in the life of a particular species.

Protective coloring is the ability of animals or plants to camouflage themselves in their environment so as to become almost invisible. Coloring in animals appeared in the course of natural selection of shape and color. Against the background of the environment, the coloring of animals makes them
- either imperceptible (protective coloring);
- either noticeable (warning coloring).

1. Protective coloring

We see the camouflage or protective coloration of animals at every step. Majority animals have a green, yellowish-green or brown-green color- in harmony with their place a habitat. Butterfly caterpillars, as a rule, have the same color as the leaves on which they develop. Green grasshoppers use green camouflage to match the grass that gives them shelter. Birds living in the grass or among the branches also have a green color (greenfinches, warblers, green woodpeckers.). In the forests of hot countries with evergreen trees, animals of green colors or multi-colored ones, painted to match the color of the surrounding vegetation, predominate. Green parrots, green lizards, snakes, frogs and other animals can be found there in abundance.

Another example of a widespread protective or harmonic coloration is observed in deserts. the globe. Desert animals, as a rule, are painted in sand-gray and brown colors. Suffice it to recall the color of camels - "ships of the desert". Many rodents, birds, snakes and lizards are painted in the colors of the desert. This coloration is calledpatronizing or, more correctly, hiding. Thanks to her, animals are not visible to predators. But the concealing coloration is also characteristic of many strong predators. It is unlikely that a lion needs a protective coloration to escape from enemies. Hiding coloration makes it easier for him to hunt, allows him to sneak up unnoticed and suddenly take possession of his prey.

There are many animals that have concealing coloration,change it seasonally. These are animals northern zone and northern part temperate zone. In the polar fox in the tundra, the winter white outfit is replaced in summer by a dark, brownish one. A similar color change occurs in rodents, such as lemmings. The winter white fur of the white hare is replaced by brownish-gray fur in the summer. An ordinary squirrel is covered with red hair in summer, and in winter it dresses in a light gray fur coat, which helps it merge with the colors of the winter landscape. The seasonal change of concealing coloration is another confirmation of its adaptive value.

Aquatic animals salpas and jellyfish do not have any protective coloration, but are masked by the fact that their body is transparent, like water, so they are literally invisible.

In other cases, the camouflage resemblance, on the contrary, serves as a means for predators to stalk and even attract prey, for example, spiders, snakes, bearded sharks.

Dissecting coloration

Military installations, vehicles, guns, and other objects that need to be hidden are often painted with a random combination of dark and light stripes and spots. Such a coloration is advantageous in that it hides the shape and outlines of a tank or structure, as if dismembering it into parts and therefore perfectly disguises it.

This principle of dismembering coloring man borrowed from nature. Many animals have a similar coloration, for example, tigers. Tigers are very difficult to spot among the thickets just because of the dark and yellow stripes on the body. This coloration allows the tiger to sneak up close to its prey. Some other feline predators do not have striped, but spotted colors. So, the South American jaguar has black spots scattered over its yellow coat. This is also a dissecting color.

In some fish, the coloring is extremely bizarre: dark vertical stripes on a light background. One of these fish - pterophyllum scalare - is often bred in aquariums. Her homeland is South America. In a normally lit aquarium among aquatic plants, it is difficult to notice a fish from above - its flat body is, as it were, divided into parts by dark stripes.

Dissecting coloring better hides the animal when moving in a differently colored environment. Even more interesting are animals that, when the color of the environment changes, can change the coloration of your body. The color of the environment changes with the movement of the animal and with various natural phenomena.

Some animals are able in such cases to quickly change color, others - slowly. The commercial sea fish flounder very quickly changes color. She spends a lot of time at the bottom, lying on her side. From the sides, her body is strongly flattened. The side on which the flounder lies is light in color; the other, facing upwards, most often greenish-gray with brown spots. A dark-colored flounder, moved to light sand, in a few minutes acquires a light, uniform color that is almost indistinguishable from the color of sandy soil.

Some lizards are also able to change color relatively quickly.A classic example of color-changing animals is the chameleon, which, depending on the situation, instantly turns blue, then green, then red.

The change in color of such animals is explained by the fact that their skin has special cells in which there are grains of various pigments (substances painted in different colors). Such cells can be with black, yellow, brown pigment. Pigment cells are able to change shape: they either become flat and their surface increases, then they form processes, then, on the contrary, they shrink into a lump. With a rapid change in the color of the external environment, perceived by the sight of an animal, some cells in its skin cover others and in different combinations give a different color to the skin. If the animal becomes blind, then it ceases to change its color.

In mammals and birds, the color depends on the pigments found in the hair and feather, and the structure of the feather also matters. Their color change is possible only during molting.

Sometimes animals (mostly insects) look like leaves, knots and sticks. Such assimilation of various objects or other animals is called mimicry (imitation).

MIMICRY (from Greek mimikos - imitative) in animals - one of the types of protective color and shape, in which the animal looks like environmental objects, plants, inedible or predatory animals. Contributes to the preservation of the animal in the struggle for existence.

When a tropical butterfly calimma perches on a tree branch and folds its wings, it is indistinguishable from a leaf. Among the orthoptera there are also such insects, which, even in a mobile state, can easily be mistaken for a leaf. Such an insect was given the name “wandering leaf”.

Stick insects are also excellently camouflaged, which no bird can find among the knots and branches of a tree. The caterpillars of our moth butterflies resort to the same tricks, which also resemble a tree knot. To complete the resemblance, they attach with their hind legs to the branches, stretch out and, so frozen in a stupor, are indistinguishable from a knot. In this state, the caterpillars can be for hours.

Mimicry observed among vertebrates. Sea fish the needle, found in the Black Sea, perfectly imitates the zoster plant, in the thickets of which it hides. The Australian ragfish has such a bizarre (non-fish) body shape that it is very difficult to spot among seaweed.

2.Warning color

Many animals, especially insects, have reliable means of protection (sharp sting, potent poisons, foul-smelling substances), masking is not necessary. Such animals do not disguise themselves, but, on the contrary, flaunt themselves, have a bright color. It is beneficial for them to be visible so that they do not mistakenly end up in the mouth of a predator. In this case, both would suffer: predator and prey. Nature found a way out here too. In the process of natural selection, poisonous insects developedwarning coloration, which shows that its owners are unsafe and should not be touched. (For example, ladybugs, wasps, bumblebees). Moreover, some completely harmless and completely edible insects dress up in scary-colored outfits and thus escape from enemies.

We already know that animals often protect themselves by imitating different objects in shape and color. Even more interesting whenone kind of animal imitates anothermany outward signs.

For example, in the tropics South America live two species of butterflies belonging to different families, strikingly similar to each other in size, shape and color. The study showed that helicoid butterflies are unpleasant in taste, i.e., inedible. This means that their bright, clearly visible color can be classified as a warning. Butterflies - whites have the same color, but these butterflies are quite edible. edible view imitates inedible. resemblance to butterflies inedible species serves as his protection.

Attractive coloring characteristic of some animals (birds, fighting fish, etc.) during the period of marriage. It serves to attract individuals of the opposite sex, often combined with smells, sounds, ritual behavior.

plant coloringdetermined by the presence of various pigments in their organs. The most common green color associated with chlorophyll, with the participation of which plants carry out photosynthesis. Yellow, red, blue, and other colors of flowers and fruits help to attract insects that pollinate flowers, as well as birds that spread fruits and seeds.

Mimicry is also observed in plants, only it usually concerns individual organs, and not the whole organism as a whole, as in animals. For example, the flowers of some orchids are similar to female bumblebees and solitary bees, not only in color, but also in smell. Males attracted by him sit on orchids and as a result transfer pollen from flower to flower. The largest flower on Earth, the rafflesia smells like carrion and is pollinated by flies trying to lay eggs on the flower. Trapping organs of some insectivorous plants resemble bright flowers that attract insects.

Mimicry in plants- similarity (shape, smell, color, etc.) with any other plants or animals.

Conclusions.

The value of disguise for living beings.

In the animal world, there is no and cannot be life without struggle: herbivores eat plants, and predators eat weaker animals. But not a single animal wants to voluntarily fall into the mouth of a predator. If it doesn't have the strength to defend or run away, it must use disguise. And the ways of disguise in animals are very diverse and bizarre.

The most common type of disguise isprotective coloration, making the animal invisible against the surrounding background. It helps predators to sneak up on prey, and their potential victims - to hide more reliably from attack. This coloration is especially important in the early stages of development, when animals are most vulnerable: first of all, it is characteristic of the eggs of open nesting birds, chicks, and young mammals, while adults of the same species often have a brighter color.

In addition to patronizing, there are also dismembering, warning and attractive colors.

Dismembering coloring makes the animal invisible against a colorful background. Various spots or stripes, as it were, “tear” his body into separate “independent” sections. Such coloring allows one animal to hide from numerous enemies (for example, the color of fish - inhabitants of coral reefs), and others (predators) quietly get close to the victim (color of pike, anaconda, leopard, etc.).

warningcoloring (defiantly bright) is inherent in poisonous animals (dart frogs, snakes, etc.), with its help they demonstrate the absence of fear of a potential enemy and, as it were, make a challenge to unprotected animals.

Attractive coloration is characteristic of some animals (birds, fighting fish, etc.) during the period of marriage. It serves to attract individuals of the opposite sex, often combined with smells, sounds, ritual behavior.

Plants are characterized by 2 types of adaptive color - warning (poisonous berries of the crow's eye, wolf) and attracting (bright corollas of insect-pollinated flowers).

Mimicry is a useful way for animals to disguise themselves when they become very similar to any other creatures or objects of the natural environment. In animals, mimicry promotes survival in the struggle for existence. Mimicry can be not only aimed at passive protection, but also serve as an attack tool, luring prey.

The red color of blood and the yellow color of bile are indifferent to the body. They could have been in other colors, and nothing would have changed. But the external coloration of animals plays an important biological role in adapting to the environment.

The diverse coloring and shape of animals is the result of natural selection, the struggle for life. Thanks to them, the species maintains its existence.

Disguise

Application.

Color Mimicry:

The plumage of the partridge merges with the surrounding background.

The frog and the grasshopper are invisible against the background of their environment.

These fish, which live in coral reefs, have dissecting coloration.

The bittern is hard to spot in the reeds. bright coloring ladybug warns:

Dont touch me!

The protective coloration of camels makes them invisible against the background of sand.

A spider waits for its prey on a flower

Bat crouched on a tree trunk

Shape Mimicry:

These insects look like dry leaves.

Deceptive resemblance:

1 - tropical callima butterfly with outstretched wings;

2 - she is with folded wings;

3 - caterpillars of the willow moth butterfly.

Imitative resemblance:

4 - hornet glass butterfly;

5 - hornet; c - wasp fly;

7 - hoverfly;

8 - shrub bumblebee;

9 - a butterfly edible for birds from the family of whites;

10 - helicoid butterfly, inedible for birds.

ABOUT Invisibility, as a means of eluding the gaze of the enemy, was dreamed of even by the compilers of 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. Butter 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 new era, 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, Welles skilfully obscures one extremely important physical question, on the correct resolution of which the entire construction 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 in more detail this curious physical problem. 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 the only reason that generates refraction is eliminated: 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. transparent man I would have acquired my 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. The animal world widely uses 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 north - be it dangerous polar bear or a harmless loon - endowed by nature 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 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.

Many young women suffer the consequences of a turbulent and active adolescence, reflected in their skin - all kinds of scars from falling off a bicycle; strange moles resulting from long stay in the sun; "bumpy" or "spider" veins.

Modern medicine offers many ways to reduce the appearance of these skin imperfections. And although most scars cannot be completely removed, you can still improve them significantly. appearance and make them more invisible.

scars

Ingredients such as glycolic and salicylic acid (which gradually soften and exfoliate tight skin) help to make scars less visible, as well as components with light-reflecting pigments, such as kojic acid or hydroquinone.

A scar is a scar on the skin from a healed wound that predominantly consists of inelastic collagen fibers. The scar tissue is usually deformed and very different from the surrounding normal tissue.

Onion extract (also called alium) has an emollient effect on all types of scars, improving their appearance (when used 2-4 times a day for 1-4 months).

Topical gels or silicone bandages also have a positive effect on scars. If you really want to achieve a visible result, it is recommended to use the gel 2-4 times a day or wear a bandage continuously for 4 months. You can get rid of scars and ugly defects on the skin using the cosmetic procedure of microdermabrasion or laser resurfacing. Microdermabrasion consists in the gradual "erasing" of the upper layer of the epidermis with a stream of inert microcrystals (aluminum oxide) with their simultaneous removal through a special vacuum system. It stimulates the formation of collagen and elastin, and improves skin tone.

Moles

Not all moles are dangerous. Only “wrong” moles or moles that suddenly change are of potential danger, which may be a sign of skin cancer. To always keep the situation under control and solve the problem at an early stage, do your own monthly inspection. own body carefully examining each mole.

Upon discovery of one of the following signs see a doctor:
- The mole has changed color, size or shape;
- A mole that itches, bleeds, or has a hard surface
- A mole with asymmetrical edges.

Stretch marks

Stretch marks, also known medically as pregnancy scars, are cracks that appear in the middle layer of the skin. As a rule, stretch marks occur with a sharp increase in body weight, when the skin does not have time to adapt to the changes taking place (for example, during pregnancy, a sharp increase in weight or rapid growth muscle mass). And although stretch marks fade over time, they still remain quite noticeable, lowering a person’s self-esteem.

Perhaps no other skin defect causes such strong controversy among dermatologists. Some argue that stretch marks are curable, others, on the contrary, insist that no remedy is able to remove stretch marks, and others hold an intermediate opinion. Daily use of tretinoin ointment/gel, or a product containing glycolic acid or onion extract, has been shown to improve skin conditions in some people.

In this case, cosmetic procedures such as microdermbrasion, laser resurfacing or photopigmentation will also be effective means. Some people claim to be able to get rid of stretch marks through the use of vitamin E and jojoba oil. If you have stretch marks and want to get rid of them, you can experiment and try different remedies to achieve a positive result.

Vein problems

"Lumpy" veins - also known as "spider" or threadlike veins, or simply broken capillaries - are veins that have lost their elasticity, causing them to stretch and dilate. These unnaturally dilated veins fill with blood, making them extremely visible under the skin. At one time, dermatologists cauterized these small vessels electric shock. Today, cauterization has been replaced by cosmetic lasers - modern technologies that lead to good cosmetic results, eliminating the effect of cobwebs on the legs.

Varicose veins, which are predominantly found on the legs, are dark blue, green, or purple. Varicose veins occur when the valves in the veins fail. The function of the valves is to move blood towards the heart, but pregnancy, excess weight, the formation of blood clots, or a hereditary defect can lead to disruption of their functioning. When this happens, the valve cannot close properly, causing blood to enter the veins. A saline solution is used to shrink the enlarged vein. In difficult cases, the vein is removed entirely.

Bad smell

Despite regular brushing and regular oral care, some people still have bad breath. In this case, the problem is not in the teeth, but in the throat and tongue. The less oxygen enters the mouth, the stronger the unpleasant smell of sulfur compounds. Sulfur compounds are also found in onions and garlic, which explains the sharp smell from the mouth after their consumption.

Drink plenty of water throughout the day to prevent bad breath. Use a variety of mouthwashes. Consume oxygenated foods such as celery or parsley. If following these recommendations, you do not see improvement, you should contact your dentist.

Warts on the hands

Warts are caused by the human papillomavirus. Warts can develop through close contact with a person who has them. Fortunately, this disease is treatable. Nowadays, warts can be removed using a cauterization procedure or a laser in any cosmetology center.

Salicylic acid is also effective tool wart treatment. The main disadvantage of this skin defect is the possibility of their reappearance. We recommend that you always follow the rules of personal hygiene and avoid using other people's things, such as towels, scrubs or clothes.

Wallpapering requires accuracy and good endurance if you have to deal with such wall repairs for the first time. To make the wallpaper on the wall even and smooth, and even so that the joints of the edges are invisible, is only possible for an experienced worker. Often, it is the seams and joints between the panels that cause fear and the refusal to use vending vinyl wallpapers in favor of non-woven ones.

Why are joints formed between panels of wallpaper

The reasons for the appearance of thin vertical lines that highlight the panels of the rolls on the plane of the wall can be several different unforeseen circumstances:

A frank marriage in the edge zone of the cloth, in which a tiny zone of 0.5-1 mm remained unpainted or erased from the paint by the roller of the upholstery machine. Sometimes a similar defect appears in vinyl wallpaper, and is almost always present on inexpensive paper textures;
If you make an incorrect convergence of joints and seams due to a violation of the parallelism of the position of the upper edge of the panel;
Incorrectly distributed glue on the wallpaper and the wall, which led to swelling of the joint, layering of the edge of one panel on another, or exposure of the base of the wall on which the wallpaper is glued.

Important ! In the latter case, when squeezing out "bubbles" of air and excess glue from under the pasted strip of wallpaper, the edges can "overlap" onto the adjacent canvas, forming a double-thickness seam, as in the photo.

Most often, the cause of such a defect is the loss of elasticity and rigidity of the cellulose base of the wallpaper waterlogged with glue. Usually, the ability to elongate different textured wallpaper made of paper or vinyl is tested on separate test pieces. The length of a thin strip cut off from the edge of the roll is measured with a ruler before applying the adhesive, after moistening and after complete drying. Accordingly, we can conclude about the quality of the material used.

How to eliminate joints, decorate or make them invisible

As in any other situation, trouble is easier to prevent than to deal with the consequences of the problem. Therefore, do-it-yourself wallpaper lovers try to stick, adhering to a few simple and affordable rules:

Advice ! When gluing, it is important to make an exact alignment of the pattern, and if it is not possible to simultaneously align the edge and reduce the pattern of the wallpaper, it is better to do it with a slight overlap of the seams than to lose the integrity of the composition.

How to hide the resulting overlap of the edge of the wallpaper with your own hands

With the normal quality of glue and wallpaper, as a rule, there is no particular problem in the resulting joint. In this case, it is necessary to clean up excess glue from under the joint in a timely manner, so that later it would be easier to hide the seam between the panels. Do not allow the glue to dry at such a junction. It will be very difficult to hide traces of glue and from the edge of the neighboring panel that has stuck on top, it will be necessary to do a thorough and lengthy cleaning of the wallpaper from the remnants of the adhesive mass.

The overlap removal procedure is carried out after about 10 hours, when the material has dried thoroughly and has already acquired the necessary rigidity, and the glue has not yet dried completely. According to the resulting joint, using a plumb line and a long metal ruler, preferably a meter long, you need to make a thin vertical line of the joint.

We apply a steel ruler according to the marking, and simply cut the seam with a construction knife with a thin blade. The resulting barely noticeable light cut will be tinted with the appropriate dye after the final drying of the wallpaper.

Edge processing will help prevent and hide joints

During wallpapering, the edges of the panels may unexpectedly "rise" due to different properties glue or poor edge adhesion. If you do not pay attention to the problem immediately, it is much more difficult to hide the joints formed after drying. Therefore, in addition to the main rolling of the pasted panel with a wide roller, it is imperative to make rolling with a narrow, 3-4 cm wide, roller with a rubber base. If the walls are even without defects, we additionally pass the joints with a wallpaper spatula made of plastic or hard rubber. With it, uneven joints can even be slightly trimmed.

If, after such a procedure, the seams and joints do not adhere to the wall, then the glue is very weak. It is urgent to make a correction of the glue, raise the edges of the wallpaper for additional gluing of the wall surface, otherwise the wallpaper will fall off the wall. In this case, non-woven wallpaper with a pre-applied adhesive base has certain advantages over vinyl.

In addition, before starting work, you should pay attention to the different quality of the edge, it may be necessary to cut off a thin colorless strip along the entire length of the unwound roll so that a light dividing line does not appear on the glued panel.

Hide the joint problem with paint

From practice it is known that people tend to trust manufacturers of expensive textured wallpaper, and often the appearance of light or even white stripes at the joints of the wallpaper comes as a complete surprise to them.

Such joints can also be hidden relatively in a simple way. In this case, the easier it is to hide the joint, the fewer color patterns on the wallpaper. The joint is simply painted over with special paint. There are no problems in order to hide the defect, there are difficulties with the correct selection of the color and shade of the dye. In this case, you have to trust the numerical designations of the toner more than your eyes, since the paint in the bottle is in a concentrated form and will look much darker than the color base of the wallpaper.

Before applying paint to the joint, be sure to check its quality and match the colors with the wallpaper colors on a small piece of wallpaper. We apply the dye to the surface, and after soaking, wipe it thoroughly with a clean and wet wipe. Check for color matching color scheme wallpaper is needed only in daylight, in artificial light it is very difficult to do it right.

As a rule, the toner is sold and used ready-made and does not require any additional manipulations. To hide the joint and make it match the color of the base, it is enough to carefully apply color with a clean brush to artwork to the surface of the seam. The paint is applied with short strokes in the direction transverse to the joint line. We grout the joint along a vertical line. After every 30-40 cm of tinted wallpaper joint, we carefully erase the paint napkin.

The more paints and colors on the wallpaper, the more difficult it is to hide the defect, and more attention has to be paid to making the transition from one color of the picture to another. The work comes down to drawing a seam of wallpaper in succession with several specific colors. Sometimes masters try to hide the line using a thin spatula blade instead of a brush, but this method requires a certain skill, otherwise you can skip individual light areas on the seam. In addition, inaccurate work with the dye can lead to unnoticed spots in the drawing and make all the work in vain.