Would you be fooled by a fly? Play a game to find out!
Christopher Taylor, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, invites you to play an insect game to assist with his research. In the natural world, not everything is what it seems. Deception is rife, and it can be hard to know whether to trust your senses. What first looks like a dead leaf might turn out to be a katydid. Or a tasty-looking worm might actually be an angler fish’s lure. Telling the difference between a fake and the real thing can be a matter of life or death. One type of deception is known as Batesian mimicry, whereby a harmless animal – the mimic – resembles a more dangerous one – the model – so that a predator will leave it well alone. Examples are treehoppers that look like ants, moths that look like hornets, and even caterpillars that look like snakes. It is easy to see how natural selection…