Kenya, Amboseli National Park, close up of zebra stripes. Scientists aren’t sure, but one theory, dubbed the “motion dazzle hypothesis,” suggests that high-contrast patterns create an optical illusion ...

Many animals use the colours and patterns on their bodies to help them blend into the background and avoid the attention of predators. But this strategy, crypsis, is far from perfect. As soon as the ...

I’ve written about why some reef dwelling fishes, particularly clownfish or anemonefish, are striped and how the direction of their stripes — vertical or horizontal — predicts their aggressiveness ...

Some patterns arise simply or randomly, but others develop via complex, precise interactions of pattern-generating systems. Their beauty aside, the intricacies of these systems are inspiring the ...

More than 70 years ago, mathematician Alan Turing proposed a mechanism that explained how patterns could emerge from bland uniformity. Scientists are still using his model—and adding new twists—to ...