Orange that disappears
Why Are Tigers Striped?
A tiger is bright orange and almost impossible to see. The animals it hunts cannot tell orange from green.
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Step 1 of 5
Stripes break up a shape.
Your eye finds an animal by finding its outline. Strong bands of dark and light cut that outline into pieces, so instead of one tiger-shaped thing you see several unconnected patches.
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Step 2 of 5
Tall grass is already striped.
Dry grass stands in vertical lines with shadow between every stem. A striped animal standing in it matches the pattern of the background, not just its colour.
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Step 3 of 5
Deer cannot see orange.
Deer and pigs have two kinds of colour sensor; you have three. That missing one is exactly the one that separates orange from green, so to a deer a tiger is the same drab colour as the field.
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Step 4 of 5
Every tiger's stripes are different.
No two tigers carry the same pattern, and the pattern is in the skin as well as the fur. Researchers identify individual tigers from photographs the way you might from a face.
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Step 5 of 5
It still has to get close.
Camouflage buys the last thirty steps, not the chase. A tiger walks slowly until it is almost touching distance, then makes one short rush — if that fails, it usually gives up.
A tiger's stripes carry on down onto its skin. Shave one and the pattern is still there.
The short version
Tiger stripes break up its outline in grass, and the deer it hunts are colour-blind to the orange that looks so bright to you.
Try it yourself
Draw an animal shape and colour it solid, then draw it again with thick black bars across. Squint at both from across the room.