This is

is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Karen Hopkins.

A good disguise keeps you hidden, right?

Well, sometimes the best disguise is actually the most dazzling because research reveals that

flashy metallic iridescence can visually baffle predators which allows colorful prey to survive another

day. Those eye-popping results appear in the journal Scientific

reports. Shimmering iridescent coloration, which changes depending on the angle from which

it's viewed, is favored by everything from birds to beetles and blossoms to butterflies.

And in our research group we are of course interested in why this vivid metallic coloration is so

taxonomically widespread in nature.

Kar and Janjmo of the University of Bristol.

She says that in some cases, the showy splashes of light

are a sexual strategy.

Here I would like to point out that in some species, particularly those who display strong

sexual dimorphism, such as birds of paradise or the peafowl and even in some butterflies

and fishes, the occurrence of iridescence is most likely driven by sexual selection.

For example, in many of these cases, it is the males that have this vivid iridescent colors and they use them in mate choice so they use them as a signal to attract mates.

But iridescence also shows up in situations where reproduction is not an issue, for example in caterpillars or

crystallises.

So what we are studying now is whether natural selection imposed by predation could explain

the occurrence of iridescence in prey animals.

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