Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

• Presents the only complete picture of deception in nature, providing a comprehensive and engaging discussion of one of the most fascinating areas of biology
• Analyses the evolution of deceptive behaviour, and shows how it has become increasingly perfected as part of an arms race between predator and prey or host and parasite
• Explains the ingenious experiments by which scientists test for examples of deceit in nature
• Vividly illustrated, with a wide range of engaging examples
• Demonstrates what the study of deception reveals about evolution and adaptation

Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

Description

Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

Table of Contents

Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

Author Information

Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

Reviews and Awards

Cheats and Deceits

How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

Martin Stevens

From Our Blog

Deception and the eye of the beholder

Deception is rife in nature, from spiders that mimic ants for protection through to carnivorous plants that lure insects with attractive smells. As highly visual animals ourselves it's only natural that we humans often judge the appearance of other species through our own senses.

Posted on March 10, 2016

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Enslaved ants and cuckoo bees

Many of us know that some birds trick other host parents from a different species into rearing their young. Best known is the common cuckoo in the UK and much of mainland Europe, However, this type of deception is not only the forte of birds ' many insects 'brood parasites' too, especially ants, wasps, and bees.

Posted on February 29, 2016

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Illusions for survival and reproduction

Much of what we think we see is not real ' it's an illusion. A favourite pastime for many visual psychologists and artists is to baffle and confuse our perception by making things appear that are not really there, or manipulating the way that we might see patterns or colours. The origin of many illusions lies in the fact that the brain often receives incomplete or conflicting information.

Posted on February 11, 2016

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