Flash behavior increases prey survival

Karl Loeffler-Henry, Changku Kang, Yolanda Yip, Tim Caro and Thomas N Sherratt

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 3, 528-533

Abstract: Flash behavior is an antipredator defense in which an otherwise cryptic prey displays conspicuous color patches during its escape but hides them on resettling. Using human subjects, we found that flash behavior increased the survival rate of escaping artificial prey, most likely because subjects expected to see prey of a different appearance when they came to search for them. This study provides first proof of concept of one hypothesized benefit of flash behavior.

Keywords: antipredator; flash coloration; hidden coloration; predator-prey; secondary defense; startle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/ary030 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:29:y:2018:i:3:p:528-533.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().