Natural selection had fallen out of favor, in particular over the matter of animal coloration. And second, while at the time the fact of evolution was widely accepted by scientists (and Roosevelt), Darwin’s explanation of the primary role of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution was not. Clearly animals’ colors did not protect them from him. First, the horse-mounted hunter extraordinaire had little difficulty spotting, stalking and bagging big game his hunting party shot more than 500 mammals. Roosevelt’s scoffed at notions of the protective value of coloration for two reasons. harmonizes fairly well with at least some landscapes, and in but a few instances among the larger mammals, and in almost none among those frequenting the open plains, is there the slightest reason for supposing that the creature gains any benefit whatever from what is loosely called its ‘protective coloration.’” “Black and white are normally the most conspicuous colors in nature (and yet are borne by numerous creatures who have succeeded well in the struggle for life) but almost any tint. Roosevelt’s safari experiences, regaled in his book African Game Trails (1910) gave him strong opinions about how animals blended, or did not blend, with their surroundings: Many of Roosevelt’s trophies wound up as exhibits in the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Shortly after he completed his second term as president in 1909, Teddy Roosevelt took a year-long hunting safari in Africa under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution.

Giraffe predators black and white