Aposematism - Can't Touch This
Imagine this: you're in a flower garden, surrounded by fragrant blooms of every color and shape. As you reach to pick a particularly lovely flower, out of the corner of your eye you notice a flash of yellow-and-black stripes. What do you do? Photo courtesy of Woody Meristem I'm going to guess that your immediate answer is something along the lines of "Pull my hand away before I get stung!" And it's a more than reasonable response. But how did you know? Most of us have probably been conditioned to this response from unpleasant first-hand experience with yellow-and-black striped stinging insects. Those of you lucky enough to have avoided being stung might still know that these colors are worth staying away from due to "group knowledge." The yellow-and-black stripes of a bee are forever associated with its painful sting. This is a phenomenon called "aposematism," which is a fancy way of saying that an animal displays bright color...