Data from: Distance-dependent aposematism and camouflage in the cinnabar moth caterpillar (Tyria jacobaeae Erebidae)

Defended prey often use distinctive, conspicuous, colours to advertise
their unprofitability to potential predators (aposematism). These warning
signals are frequently made up of salient, high contrast, stripes which
have been hypothesised to increase the speed and accuracy of predator
avoidance learning. Limitations in predator visual acuity, however, mean
that these patterns cannot be resolved when viewed from a distance, and
adjacent patches of colour will blend together (pattern blending). We
investigated how saliency changes at different viewing distances in the
toxic and brightly coloured cinnabar moth caterpillar (Tyria jacobaeae).
We found that although the caterpillars’ orange-and-black stripes are
highly salient at close-range, when viewed from a distance the colours
blend together to match closely those of the background. Cinnabar
caterpillars therefore produce a distance-dependent signal combining
salient aposematism with targeted background matching camouflage, without
necessarily compromising the size or saturation of their aposematic
signal.