Background colour and surface topography elicit different responses to moving and immobile prey from a salticid predator

When assessing camouflage of prey on complex backgrounds, colour, luminance and pattern are known to affect prey detection, but the effect of surface topography has received less attention. Furthermore, recent evidence challenges previous research showing that movement breaks camouflage, but empirical evidence from natural predator–prey interactions remains scarce. This leaves a critical gap in our understanding of how prey movement and surface topography affect prey camouflage in a natural setting. Using staged experimental encounters, we assessed the effects of prey movement, and of background colour and surface topography, on the responses of a jumping spider predator. We used the jumping spider Helpis minitabunda as a model predator against four species of zopherid beetles. By placing zopherid prey against backgrounds varying in colour and surface topography, we determined that background matching functions differently between moving and stationary targets. When prey are in motion, natural background colours extend detection time and reduce the likelihood of attack, confirming that camouflage can still be beneficial during movement in natural predator–prey interactions. Conversely, when prey remain stationary, backgrounds exhibiting more complex surface topography significantly reduce detection by jumping spiders, independent of background colour matching. This suggests background matching may be less important for stationary prey that are found in habitats with significant fine-scale surface topography, such as bark. Overall, this study provides evidence that camouflage can be beneficial to prey during movement, and surface topography is an important factor in reducing detection of small-bodied stationary prey. • Camouflage reduces predation of small moving prey from jumping spiders. • Camouflage is not entirely broken during movement in predator-prey interactions. • Complex surfaces reduce predation of stationary prey independent of camouflage.