Cheats and Deceits: How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead

by Martin Stevens

In nature, trickery and deception are widespread. Animals and plants mimic other objects or species in the environment for protection, trick other species into rearing their young, lure prey to their death, and deceive potential mates for reproduction. Cuckoos lay eggs carefully matched to their host's own clutch. Harmless butterflies mimic the wing patterning of a poisonous butterfly to avoid being eaten. The deep-sea angler fish hangs a glowing, fleshy lure in front of its mouth to draw the attention of potential prey, while some male fish alter their appearance to look like females in order to sneak past rivals in mating. Some orchids develop the smell of female insects in order to attract pollinators, while carnivorous plants lure insects to their death with colourful displays.
In Cheats and Deceits, Martin Stevens describes the remarkable range of such adaptations in nature, and considers how they have evolved and increasingly been perfected as part of an arms race between predator and prey or host and parasite. He explores both classic and recent research of naturalists and biologists, showing how scientists find ways of testing the impact of particular behaviours and colourings on the animals it is meant to fool. Drawing on a wide range of examples, Stevens considers what deception tells us about the process of evolution and adaptation.

Genres: Nature, Animals, Science, Biology, Nonfiction, Ecology

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2016

About the author

I am an Associate Professor of Sensory and Evolutionary Ecology in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. My research work and teaching focuses on animal behaviour and their sensory systems and ecology. Most of my work aims to understand the evolution and function of animal coloration, including camouflage, mimicry, and warning signals, from the perspective of animal vision. This work has included studies on a wide range of animals, including fish, reptiles, birds, insects, crabs, and primates. My work has frequently covered topics related to deception, including mimicry by brood parasites (‘cuckoos’) and anti-predator coloration, including camouflage, eyespots, and mimicry. I have published over 80 scientific manuscripts, two textbooks, and a general audience book on deception in nature. My research is frequently covered in the international media and I have taken part in a wide range of TV, radio, and magazine productions and given public lectures around the world.

Reviews

[Alazzar · Rating 3 out of 5]

We've all heard about some basic forms of animal trickery, whether it's camouflaged prey or eyespots on butterfly wings. But there's a lot more deception than that to be had in nature, and Martin Stevens does a great job of sharing these strategies with the reader.

There were two main things I liked about this book, the first of which was the various examples of deception--and the details involved in each case. Yeah, I already knew cuckoos laid their eggs in other birds' nests, but I never realized the extent to which they took advantage of their hosts. Did you know that when cuckoo chicks are born, they'll throw the host chicks/eggs out of the nest? Did you know that greater honeyguide chicks are equipped with a spike on their beaks so they can outright murder the resident chicks of the nest they've parisitized?

If you don't believe me on that last one, don't worry--there's a goddamned picture of it in the book.

So, yeah--one of the main lessons I learned from this book is that birds can be huge assholes. (Or cloacas, I suppose.)

The other big takeaway from Stevens's writing was an interesting look into the scientific process. It was cool to see just how much work goes into proving something that may seem obvious to our human perception.

Take the aforementioned eyespots on butterflies, for example. If we know that eyespots sometimes scare off predators, it might be easy to say, "Oh, that makes sense, because they look like eyes, and the predators might be scared of the eyes." But that's not good enough for science! Science wonders if the eyespots' effectiveness is due to their resemblance to actual eyes, or due to the striking contrast of colors--something called a "startle display," which can cause a predator to hesitate during an attack. Stevens spends a good amount of time discussing different experiments that have tried to prove each hypothesis, and it's fascinating to get an inside look at the world of science.

In fact, this aspect of the book actually gives me a greater respect for the general scope of science, in that I now realize the facts we take for granted had to go through some pretty rigorous testing before the scientific community was willing to give its seal of approval. And with so many different things in the world that need to be studied and understood, it's a miracle science has catalogued as much as it has.

As far as the book's downsides go, there were definitely some sections I was less interested in strictly because of the plant or animal subjects involved. Like, I just don't care that much about fungi. But changeling murder-birds whose first act upon hatching is to slaughter their nest-mates? Sign me up! It's like when I was a kid watching the Discovery channel: I was all about sharks and big cats, but had little interest in flamingos and dirt.

In the end, Cheats and Deceits was a pretty cool book. If nothing else, it's given me a few fun facts to share at parties, because who doesn't want to hear about brown-headed cowbirds and their mafia enforcement tactics?

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheats and Deceits, like most books from Oxford University Press, is at times breathlessly fascinating - at other times a bit dryer than I'd like. It's a book that takes persistence to finish, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. By the end of the book you will know the different types of deceit and mimicry that exist in the world, and why the designations matter. You will also know how much more research has yet to be done in the field, and how it helps us innovate new technologies, as well as better understand the world. All in all not a bad trade-off, I'd say.

The bulk of the animals focused upon in this book are insects and arthropods, largely due to them having been the most studied in terms of deceit. Butterflies, hoverflies, wasps and bees abound. There is comparatively little focus upon cephalopods and fish, but that's largely due to the constraints upon studying them, as the author explains. Fish, however, are by far the most interesting sexual mimics and deceivers - largely due to the outside of body fertilization technique. The final chapter made me jones for the day when electrical deception is studied among those clades, but understandably we know very little about it.

By far my favorite section was on the "eyespsots" of butterflies and moths and how they could be a dazzle display rather than, you know, mimicking eyes. Essentially just because something looks like x to us doesn't mean that is what it is. You need to look at it from the perspective of the predator or prey, and question every assumption you might hold. The answers may surprise you.

All in all this was a fascinating book that highlights what it means to practice good science, question your own assumptions, and think about things logically. The book was a pleasure, made me laugh out loud at points due to how absurd the natural world can be, and contained some choice quotes of classic Darwin enthusiasm. While this book isn't for everyone, if you've enjoyed previous publications from this publisher and are looking to read some hard zoological science this book should prove to be a pleasure.

Also, please let me know your reaction to learning about anglerfish reproduction. I'm still not over that..

[Javier Abalos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very dry book for anyone lacking a basic training in behavioural ecology. However, the extreme attention given to the solid science, the analytical dissection of each biological question involving deception, and the carefully selected wording will make this book immediately a favourite for anyone interested in a higher-level understanding of a fascinating aspect of nature: animal trickery. Personally, this book gave me tons of motivation to pursue a career in animal communication research.

[Anusha Narasimhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read about the ways in which creatures cheat and deceive others. Many of the facts mentioned were new to me. This was an educative and interesting read. Highly recommended!

Note - I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review in any way.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fascinating! As an evolutionary biologist, I particularly appreciated the formal analysis of scientific papers (describing the pros and cons of studies, for example, as well as what future work remains). It was also fun to have the theoretical grounding (how are deception, mimicry, and sensory exploitation all different?). One fascinating theoretical insight for how staggeringly accurate mimicry can evolve: often animals evolve towards a sensory signal that is especially stimulating in a vacuum, such as yellow stripes, which then paves the way to more incredible mimicry of a whole organism.

However by far my favorite part were the INCREDIBLE examples. Mimicry is often nigh-unbelievable.

- Gliding lizards mimic leaves
- caterpillars mimic snakes (see cover)
- jumping spiders mimic ants, even holding their front two legs above their head to make them look like 6-legged animals with 2 antennae
- burrowing owls hiss like rattlesnakes
- chicks of the bird Laniocera hypopyrra mimic toxic caterpillars
- cuckoos (avian brood parasites) “farm” their hosts, killing broods that are too far along to prompt parents to re-nest.
- slave-maker ants adopt myriad nefarious topics to force an entire colony of unrelated individuals to advance their own genetic interests

And so much more!!!!!

[Stephen Sorensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It fell short of 5 stars because it failed to discuss the issues in defining deceit. From the outset he said he didn’t want to bog down his readers with talks of semantics, and he discuss some issues is determining mimicry on pages 121-123, but what deception is and the struggles previously discussed in the literature would have been useful for bestowing a more well-rounded comprehension of the subject to his readers.

Other than the semantical shortcomings, this is a captivating dive into the world of animal trickery. It focuses mostly on non-mammalian examples.

“Wallace argued that animal coloration, including things such as camouflage and mimicry, offered ‘an almost unworked and inexhaustible field of discovery for the zoologist’. He wasn’t wrong. Comprehending these and other aspects of deception will greatly enhance our knowledge of the natural world and the mechanisms that make it work, and continue to heighten the wonder of diversity of life, and the remarkable power of evolution.” p.269

[Artemis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was at times non critical of the biases of western science, but otherwise the information contained was very interesting.

I'm curious to see what research will come forward when scholars from other perspectives enter the field.

[Paul Franco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember attending a seminar at the LA Zoo on this very subject, which is what got me to check this book out; otherwise I would have stayed far away from it, biology having been my worst subject ever. I particularly remember the gecko who looked the same from both ends, as well as why zebras have stripes. Unfortunately for me, most of this book is focused on bugs and birds, as can be readily seen from the many close-up photos of insects; yucky.
I soldiered on, and found some things of interest, particularly how birds use sound to trick; even humans can fall for it, as in the case of a drongo scaring a two-year-old into dropping a worm so the bird could fly down and snatch it up.
There’s a few points the author makes that are spot on, like how nature is not meant to be harmonious, with most animals genetically inclined toward survival and nothing else. One I particularly liked: If a predator loses the battle it goes hungry for a while, but if the prey loses, it dies. But the most important as far as this book is concerned—without this there would be no book—is that while it seems more logical to run away when something’s coming to eat you, a lot of animals don’t do this and resort to other means for survival, those covered here.
In the end this is a pretty comprehensive study of some of the tricks insects and birds use to survive, but it feels too scholarly for non-scientists. I imagine this book will go over very well in the scientific community, but since it seems to be geared toward the general public, I don’t think it hit the mark for which it was aiming.
2.5 pushed up to 3/5

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheats and Deceits: How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead by Martin Stevens is a detailed yet accessible look at how predators and prey use trickery to improves their chances at capturing or evading capture. While some of these are fairly well known the explanations make each example interesting.

While the writing is not meant to be entertainment I found it to be quite engaging and combined with the subject matter made this an extremely enjoyable read. In addition to simply telling the reader what trick a given organism uses, like many books that touch on this subject, Stevens explains how this trait has evolved (in prey for example) and also how the predator may have also evolved in response to this. Perhaps to seek other prey, perhaps an ability to trick or deceive the initial prey. This is an ongoing evolutionary process and Stevens treats it as dynamic rather than static.

This book is definitely accessible to a general reader with an interest yet is also detailed enough to be of interest to professionals in any associated field. If, like me, your curiosity seems to be never ending, then you will find yourself looking up additional information about species that were unknown to you.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Great book. The book was well ordered, it gave plenty of examples that were explained as well as pictured. It's nonfiction, it's not meant to be the most riveting thing ever written; but I enjoyed it. It was an interesting topic and it was covered well. The book covered topics with which I am familiar, however, it was written in such a way that any person could read it and understand it. I think this would be a great addition to any library.

[Mills College Library]

591.472 S845 2016