Passive debris cloaking in beetles provides non-visual camouflage against predatory ants

Our understanding of visual camouflage has increased dramatically in recent years, however we know less about anti-predator defenses that exploit senses other than vision. Low light habitats, such as leaf litter, are more commonly dominated by predators that rely on chemical, tactile, and other nonvisual cues. Passive debris cloaking is a trait found in several arthropod groups that reside in low light habitats and appears as a layer of environmental debris that covers the cuticle. This debris accumulates passively as the organism moves through its habitat, generally via the secretion of adhesive compounds through specialized pores. We hypothesised that passive debris cloaking is a form of non-visual camouflage, and tested this experimentally using zopherid beetles as a model. Zopherid beetles are highly diverse in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and include many species that exhibit passive debris cloaking. By exposing zopherids with varying degrees of cuticular debris to colonies of foraging p..., , # Data from: Passive debris cloaking in beetles provides non-visual camouflage against predatory ants

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.v15dv427v](10.5061/dryad.v15dv427v)

## Description of the data and file structure

This data accompanies the manuscript titled \"Passive debris cloaking in beetles provides non-visual camouflage against predatory ants\".

This data was collected by putting a single beetle into the foraging area of an artificial ant colony and scoring interactions between foraging ants and the beetle \"prey\" for 10 minutes. Each row is a separate experiment. All experiments were run at night time using only a red head light for light to maintain nocturnal conditions as all species used in these experiments are nocturnal. For detailed information on treatment and interaction types, see methods section in the original manuscript. 

For more information on the collection information for zopherid beetles used for these experiments, see the spread sheet supplied as supplementary mat...,