The color of an animal can determine whether it lives or dies. If it’s easily spotted by predators, it may well become a meal. Hidden nicely against its background, an animal can escape its enemies for another day.

The particular colors on an animals are determined partly by the genes its gets from its parents. That means that genes that hide animals can spread thanks to natural selection, leading to the evolution of exquisite camouflage. But that’s not to say that the animal kingdom has settled on a perfect, fixed palette. You can find mismatched individuals. Over the course of generations, a whole population can flicker between mismatched and well-matched.

The most famous example of mismatched colors first came to light in