Colour patterns: Predicting patterns without knowing the details

Timothy E Saunders; Antónia Monteiro

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.042

Colour patterns: Predicting patterns without knowing the details

Curr Biol. 2022 Dec 5;32(23):R1306-R1308. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.042.

Authors

Timothy E Saunders¹, Antónia Monteiro²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Biomedical Sciences, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK; Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Electronic address: timothy.saunders@warwick.ac.uk.
² Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

PMID: 36473439
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.042

Abstract

A bewildering array of colour patterns occurs across animals. New work studying five lizard species reveals that reaction-diffusion models can be remarkably predictive of future adult skin patterning, even though molecular details are unknown. This has implications for understanding how complex patterns evolve.

Publication types

Comment