Why Does Every Animal Look Like This?

In the race to survive, both predators and prey use visual tricks to get ahead. One nearly universal trick is countershading, a color pattern that helps animals erase their own shadows or blend into different backgrounds. It’s worked well enough that nature has produced this pattern over and over again, all over Earth, for at least tens of millions of years.

0:00 Why does every animal look like this?
0:52 A painter's big idea
1:49 Disappearing shadows
2:22 Testing the idea
3:48 Countershading everywhere!
6:10 What about water?
7:22 Making light to hide shadows
8:19 Outro