animal survival

[eleanormcn]

Do flashy animals attract more predators as well as mates?

[andy-hughes]

Animals that have flashy colouring usually have few or no natrual enemies - by evolution, if they attracted creatures further up the food chain, their gaily coloured ancestors would have died out long ago.

[brachiopod]

Some animals that secrete poisons are brightly coloured (eg certain insects and frogs for example). Other, similar, animals that are perfectly edible mimic the poisonous ones and thus gain a degree of protection from predators, who will tend to shun them thinking they are the poisonous 'version'.

[logman]

Some prey species go down the route of camouflage to hide from predetors, while others have bright colours that serve as a warning to would-be predetors ie wasp, poison arrow tree frog, but mimic even bigger predetors to escape being eaten ie the peacock butterfly, which has large "eyes" in its wing colouring that appeare to be that of an owl or such like.

An experement was once based on this prinsiple where "eyes" were painted onto the wings of racing pigeons that had been falling prey to falcons and it was found that a significent number of pigeons was getting through with the new artificial wing designs..