THE FICKLE NATURE OF NATURE’S BEAUTIFUL MARKINGS NOW
We love animals and plants with beautiful brightly colored markings. And we know that nature uses markings to yield a number of advantages. The brilliantly-colored oriental sweetlips fish (Plectorhinchus vittatus), for example, uses its markings to signal sexual maturity as well as its availability to be cleaned by symbiotic cleaner wrasse fish (Labroides dimidiatus), which pick parasites from its skin.
While some animals use their brightly colored markings to attract mates, food, and cleaning services, others use them to warn predators. They are known as aposematic, and they include some species of frogs, octopus and butterflies, among others.
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New findings may help humans to use colored markings for their own benefits.
Researchers at Deakin University, in Melbourne, Australia, recently found that some frogs use their vivid markings to both ward off predators, signaling their toxicity, and, ironically, they can also use their markings to appear invisible.
The university’s Centre for Integrated Ecology team, led by evolutionary biologist Professor John Endler, with Bibiana Rojas, studied poison dart frogs in the wild and identified the reason behind the frogs’ markings paradox.
The team studied groups of vibrant blue and yellow poison dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius) in their natural habitat in French Guiana. They found that one group of frogs exhibited markings with bold or elongated patterns, while the other group had mottled and more variable markings.
The scientists also found that different markings patterns correlated to different behaviors and different patterns of movement.
The more variable the frog's markings, the more erratic their movements, and the less recognizable they were to predators.
"The frogs with elongated patterns moved continuously in the same direction to create an illusion of static pattern, or a pattern travelling at a slower speed, to thwart predators attempting to track their trajectory,” according to the study.
"But frogs which moved randomly and changed directions frequently, rely on interrupted colour patterns that appear visually disruptive and hard to see at a distance, giving them an advantage in predator detection rather than tracking.”
This has implications both for the development of camouflage and visibility improvement. If taxis, police cars, and ambulances were painted with horizontal stripes, they could be more easily seen when they are going past.
The report, "Paradox lost: variable colour-pattern geometry is associated with differences in movement of aposematic frogs", has been published in the latest edition of the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.
Read more about Beautiful Markings, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including 10 New Books on Beautiful Markings Now.
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IMAGE CREDITS:
- Photo: by Katja Kirschner. Oriental Sweetlips Fish (Plectorhinchus vittatus).
- Photo: by Gerald J. Lenhard. LSU AG Center. Saddleback Caterpillar, Acharia Stimulea.
- Photo: by Michael Gäbler. Dendrobates Azureus.
- Photo: by Peter Miller. Poison Dart Frogs.
- Photo: by Drriss & Marrionn. Dendrobates Auratus Costa Rica.
- Photo: by Nick Hobgood. Congo tree frog from Lubumbashi.
- Photo : by MoleSon². Poison Dart Frog Sitting on a Leaf.
- Image: by Thomas Marent. Courtesy of DK Publishing. Rainforest.
- Photo: by Drriss & Marrionn. Auratus. Costa Rica.
- Photo: Courtesy of Museum of Life and Science. Poison Arrow Frog.
- Photo: by Dendrotoine85. "La Gruta"(Oophaga Pumilio).
- Photo: by Kenneth Dwain Harrelson. Monarch Butterfly.
- Photo: by Tlusťa. Garden Tiger Moth, Arctia Caja.
- Photo: by Hectonichus. Acanthurus Sohal.
