Camouflage Animals

Camouflage was not in wide use in early western civilization based warfare. 18th and 19th century armies tended to use bright colors and bold, impressive designs. These were intended to daunt the enemy, attract recruits, foster unit cohesion, or allow easier identification of units in the fog of war common to the battlefield before the invention of smokeless gun powder. Jäger riflemen in the 18th century were the first to adopt colors in relatively drab shades of green or grey. Major armies retained their bright colors until convinced otherwise. In 1857, the British in India were forced by casualties to dye their white hot-weather uniforms to neutral tones, initially a muddy tan called khaki (from the Urdu word for 'dust'). This was only a temporary measure. It was not until after the Second Boer War that, in 1902, the "home service" (i.e. non-tropical) field uniforms of the entire British army were standardised using a darker shade of khaki serge. Other armies, such as those of the United States, Russia, Italy, and Germany followed suit either with khaki, grey, blue-grey or other colors more suitable for their environments.
Camouflage netting, natural materials, disruptive color patterns, and paint with special infrared, thermal, and radar qualities have also been used on military vehicles, ships, aircraft, installations and buildings. A striking example of this is the dazzle camouflage used on ships during WW I. Ghillie suits are worn by snipers and their spotters to take camouflage to a higher level, combining not just colors, but twigs, leaves and other foliage to break up the human silhouette and to replace the printed patterns of their uniform with colors and materials from their immediate environment so as to remain inconspicuous even while being directly observed through binoculars or from above by aircraft.
A new development are pixelated patterns of so called digital camouflage, like ACUPAT, MARPAT and CADPAT.