The swaying behavior of<i>Extatosoma tiaratum</i>: motion camouflage in a stick insect?

Bian, Xue-Bin; Elgar, Mark A.; Peters, Richard

doi:10.1093/beheco/arv125

Cited by 55 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Additionally, but less understood, potential prey have evolved behaviors that enhance their morphological adaptations, and these include mimicking the movement of the physical background ( e.g ., moving leaves; see Bian et al . ) or postures that enhance camouflage (Webster et al . , Wang & Schaefer ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These adaptations range from color patterns that match the visual background to more complex physical structures that mimic the shape of objects in the background (reviewed by Stevens & Merilaita 2009, 2011, Skelhorn & Rowe 2016. Additionally, but less understood, potential prey have evolved behaviors that enhance their morphological adaptations, and these include mimicking the movement of the physical background (e.g., moving leaves; see Bian et al 2016) or postures that enhance camouflage (Webster et al 2009, Wang & Schaefer 2012. More simply, potential prey can evolve the ability to choose background that enhances or maintains crypsis (Kettlewell & Conn 1977, Lovell et al 2013, Tyrie et al 2015, Marshall et al 2016.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Active background choice facilitates crypsis in a tropical crab

Ravichandran

Patel

et al. 2017

Biotropica

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Animals can evade predators in multiple ways, one of the most effective of which is to avoid detection in the first place. We know much about the evolution of color patterns that match the visual background to avoid detection (i.e., crypsis), yet we know surprisingly less about the specific behaviors that have co‐evolved with these morphological traits to enhance or maintain crypsis. We here explore whether the match between body color and background in a seemingly well‐camouflaged tropical shore crab is a result of active background choice. Taking advantage of a coastal area in the Solomon Islands with variable sand color and a population of the pallid ghost crab Ocypode pallidula with varying carapace color, we experimentally tested whether individuals actively choose specific substrate that best matches their color patterns. We found that individuals taken from extreme sand colors chose substrate that maintained crypsis, with relatively darker crabs typically choosing dark sand and lighter crabs choosing light sand. Crabs of intermediate color pattern, in contrast, showed no clear preference for dark or light sand. Our results suggest that potential prey can actively choose specific backgrounds to enhance and maintain crypsis, providing insights into how behavior interacts with morphological traits to avoid predator detection.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active background choice facilitates crypsis in a tropical crab

Ravichandran

Patel

et al. 2017

Biotropica

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“…Lizard signals are reconstructed in 3D, while plant motion is filmed in 2D from a single viewpoint perpendicular to the camera. Feature tracking and 3D reconstruction of plant movements is achievable (Bian et al, 2016), but impractical on a large scale. Plants are complex structures, so selecting parts of plants to be representative of the plants' movements is problematic.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, chameleons and several species of phasmid are suggested to use motion to mimic their surroundings and to prevent recognition by predators (Gans, 1967;Robinson, 1969;Bässler and Pflüger, 1979;Bian et al, 2016), while other species use movement to avoid being detected by their prey (Kennedy, 1965;Fleishman, 1985). For example, the Mexican vine snake (Oxybelis aeneus) often moves or changes position when the wind is blowing and plants are moving, which purportedly renders the snake's movement difficult for prey to classify as a potential threat (Fleishman, 1985).…”

Section: Broader Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Ecological Constraints on Motion Signaling

Ramos

Peters

2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The environment in which animal signals are generated has the potential to affect transmission and reliable detection by receivers. To understand such constraints, it is important to quantify both signals and noise in detail. Investigations of acoustic and color signals now utilize established methods, but quantifying motion-based visual signals and noise remains rudimentary. In this paper, we encourage a more complete consideration of motion signaling environments and describe an approach to quantifying signal and noise in detail. Signals are reconstructed in three-dimensions, microhabitats are mapped and the noise environment quantified in a standardized manner. Information on signal and noise is combined to consider signal contrast from multiple viewpoints, and in any of the habitats we map. We illustrate our approach by examining signals and noise for two allopatric populations of the Australian mallee military dragon Ctenophorus fordi. By "placing" signals in different microhabitats we observed similar signal contrast results within populations, but clear differences when considered in microhabitats of the other population. These preliminary results are consistent with the hypothesis that habitat structure has affected display structure in these populations of lizards. Our novel methodology will facilitate the examination of habitat-dependent convergence and divergence in motion signal structure in a variety of taxonomic groups and habitats. Furthermore, we anticipate application of our approach to consider the visual ecology of animals more broadly.

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“…As a consequence, diverse species have evolved an avalanche of countermeasures (Ruxton et al, 2004). Although there are examples of animals gaining protection from moving (Bian et al, 2016), the importance of stillness for concealment 'can hardly be overestimated' (Cott, 1940, p. 161). Nonetheless, virtually all lepidopteran larvae enter a wandering phase prior to pupation (Dominick & Truman, 1984), during which they would appear particularly vulnerable to detection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Host plant exodus and larval wandering behaviour in a butterfly: diapause generation larvae wander for longer periods than do non‐diapause generation larvae

Wiklund

Stefanescu

Friberg

2017

Ecological Entomology

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1. Prior to pupation, lepidopteran larvae enter a wandering phase lasting up to 30 h before choosing a pupation site. Because stillness is important for concealment, this behaviour calls for an adaptive explanation.2. The explanation most likely relates to the need to find a suitable pupation substrate, especially in terms of shelter from predation, and given that many predators and parasitoids use host plants as prey-location cues, mortality probably decreases with distance from the host plant. Hence, remaining on the host includes a long-term risk, while moving away from the host introduces an increased risk during locomotion.3. Bivoltine species that overwinter in the pupal stage produce two kinds of pupae; non-diapausing pupae from which adults emerge after 1-2 weeks, or diapausing pupae that overwinter with adults emerging after 8-10 months.4. Given the hypothesis of distance-from-host-plant-related predation, this should select for phenotypic plasticity with larvae in the diapausing generation having a longer wandering phase than larvae under direct development, if there is a trade-off between mortality during the wandering phase and accumulated mortality during winter.5. Here this prediction is tested by studying the duration of the wandering period in larvae of the partially bivoltine swallowtail butterfly, Papilio machaon, under both developmental pathways.6. The results are in agreement with the predictions and show that the larval wandering phase is approximately twice as long under diapause development. The authors suggest that the longer duration of the wandering phase in the diapause generation is a general phenomenon in Lepidoptera.

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The swaying behavior ofExtatosoma tiaratum: motion camouflage in a stick insect?

Cited by 55 publications

References 41 publications

Active background choice facilitates crypsis in a tropical crab

Active background choice facilitates crypsis in a tropical crab

Quantifying Ecological Constraints on Motion Signaling

Host plant exodus and larval wandering behaviour in a butterfly: diapause generation larvae wander for longer periods than do non‐diapause generation larvae

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