1. Exploring Defense Strategies: False Coloring
Check out these “tricksy” moths!
An eye appears suddenly in the shadowy leafy world where a little bird forages. It could mean a predator close enough to strike. Flee NOW! If you pause to scrutinize for even a millisecond, you may be lunch.
Natural selection has hard-wired you to instantly flee when you see that eye. You "startle", and jump, fly, leap, and/or fall away from where you are. Perhaps you move only a meter or two. However, in the shadowy and confusing world of a tiny bird among thousands of rustling leaves and branches, this movement takes you away from the caterpillar or pupa. The last thing you are going to do is go back into that mass of leaves to high-risk explore to see if you were fooled into leaving your lunch behind.
Delicious moth, or the eyes of an owl?
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2. Exploring Defense Strategies: False Coloring
Which way is the butterfly fish swimming? The black dot on its tail is a false eye. A predator may bite this end of the fish, allowing it to escape with only one part of its tail missing. And these caterpillars have false eye spots to startle predators and fool them into thinking that a much larger animal is looking at them. That may be enough to get the predator to run away and not approach it again!