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Effective camouflage renders a target indistinguishable from irrelevant background objects. Two interrelated but logically distinct mechanisms for this are background pattern matching (crypsis^,) and disruptive coloration: in the former, the animal's colours are a random sample of the background^,; in the latter, bold contrasting colours on the animal's periphery break up its outline. The latter has long been proposed as an explanation for some apparently conspicuous coloration in animals^,, and is standard textbook material. Surprisingly, only one quantitative test of the theory exists, and one experimental test of its effectiveness against non-human predators. Here we test two key predictions: that patterns on the body's outline should be particularly effective in promoting concealment and that highly contrasting colours should enhance this disruptive effect. Artificial moth-like targets were exposed to bird predation in the …