Flight initiation distance, color and camouflage

Camouflage is widespread throughout the animal kingdom allowing individuals to avoid detection and hence save time and energy rather than escape from an approaching predator. Thus, camouflage is likely to have co-evolved with antipredator behavior. Here, we propose that camouflage results in dichotomous escape behavior within and among species with classes of individuals and species with cryptic coloration having shorter flight initiation distances (FIDs; the distance at which an individual takes flight when approached by a human). We report the results of 2 tests of this hypothesis. First, bird species with cryptically colored plumage have consistently shorter FID than closely related species without such color. Within species with sexually dimorphic plumage, brightly colored adult male common pheasants Phasianus colchicus and golden pheasants Chrysolophus pictus have long and variable FID, whereas cryptically colored juveniles and adult females have short and invariable FID. Second, FID in females was predicted by presence or absence of cryptic color, FID in males and their interaction. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that risk-taking behavior has been attuned to camouflage, and that species with different levels of camouflage differ consistently in their FID.