Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Colorful Strategies for Surviving in Nature

Animals often display fascinating colors to help show or hide themselves. Dr. Molly Cummings will examine the visual mechanisms animals use to avoid being eaten or to advertise for mates. She will provide vivid examples from creatures in the ocean and the jungle. She will discuss some of the evolutionary forces shaping signals used for sexual selection (intraspecific traits) as well as those designed by natural selection (aposematic traits) across a broad taxonomic range including poison frogs, fishes (marine and freshwater), damselflies, and scarab beetles.