What it is
The authors propose that butterflies' high-contrast wing patterns work together with their flight to create visual illusions that confuse predators, and support the idea with four lines of evidence. High-speed films of butterflies taking off in free flight show the patterns generating misleading motion cues; analyses that control for the species' evolutionary relationships indicate the strategy is evolutionarily widespread; in silico evolution experiments independently converge on high-contrast, butterfly-like wing patterns; and behavioural experiments validate the models' predictions.
Why it matters
The dazzling stripes of zebras and snakes have long been thought to interfere with how predators perceive motion, but that hypothesis has had little empirical support, and the function of butterflies' enormously diverse, high-contrast wing patterns has inspired intense theoretical debate. The authors conclude that wing patterns and flight dynamics together create powerful illusory motion effects, potentially one of the most successful visual defence strategies among moving animals.
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Filed underBiomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms, Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research, Animal Behavior and Reproduction
