![]() Interestingly, the image of the owl with no eyes seemed to spark more curiosity than fear among the would-be predators, triggering them to investigate the image more closely. ![]() Compare prices & save money on Halloween Decor. An even smaller percentage of the birds were startled by the butterfly with no eyespots. (1.54 - 106.94) Find great deals on the latest styles of Fake eyeballs for halloween. But only 33% reacted similarly to the image that sported color-reversed eyespots-a difference that suggests it's not the boldness of the image that's startling the birds, it's the mimicry of eye coloration in a predator the bird is likely familiar with. That's on par with the 57% showing the same reactions to the owl with open eyes, the team notes. About 68% of the birds shown the image with the eye-mimicking spots either flew away or showed signs of being startled such as chirping a warning call, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. When the bird swooped down upon its prey, the team flashed one of five images on a computer monitor lying directly beneath the worm: an owl (a tit predator) with open eyes, an owl with its eyes closed, a butterfly with prominent owl-like eyespots on its wings, a butterfly with eyespots whose colors had been reversed, or a butterfly whose eyespots had been digitally removed. Use a clean art brush dipped in red gel food color to draw squiggly lines to create the appearance of a bloodshot eyeball. ![]() Do they startle potential attackers simply because they're conspicuous, or do they mimic the eyes of a creature the songbirds truly fear? In a new study researchers lured great tits ( Parus major) to a particular spot on the floor of their cage with a dead mealworm. Eyelike spots on butterflies and caterpillars scare off songbirds and other predators, yet scientists don't know exactly why they work.
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