Male guppy with orange spots.A. PRICE
Orange spots on prawn pincers may take advantage of the fact that guppies happen to like the color, according to new research published today (May 15) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In some Trinidad streams, predatory prawns coexist with guppy species with brilliant orange males and that eat orange-colored fruit. By copying the color, the prawns appear to be able to get closer to their prey, as guppies dropped their guard when they saw the orange-spotted pincers. Thus, what might lure a female guppy to a male might also lure her into danger.
“This is the first significant advance on predatory lures for 100+ years and the first experiment really addressing why a lure should actually work,” John Endler, an evolutionary ecologist at ...
