eyespots

They are newer than the eyespots of the last common ancestor, but they could well be older than the eyespots of some flatworm species alive today.

Really, it's like those moths with eyespots on them: good at fooling the brain's heuristics but obviously not real.

First black and white spots to reduce mosquito bites, now artificial eyespots to reduce predation.

Well, I still see Orca eyespots as eyes and I've known they're not for at least two decades now.

Even more novel is the idea, suggested in the conclusion, of using eyespots to protect depleted predator species against retribution by armed herdkeepers.

Eyes are far superior to eyespots in certain ways (accuracy, for one), but far inferior in others (energy consumption, size, durability).

Maybe having eyespots in weird places would deter potential mates?

Even better: Eyespots with built in lasers.

If there isn't a strong enough selection pressure (there is plenty of wild prey, they only rarely attack cattle) then they wouldn't learn to ignore the eyespots for many generations.

I've always been partial to butterflies with eyespots.

> Although no known contemporary mammals display anti-predator eyespots, the effects of eye patterns and gaze have been shown to modify behaviour in this Class including in humans, domestic and wild canids, and domestic cats.

Here's an analogy: Ancient organisms had light-sensitive "eyespots", and many of our distant cousins on the evolutionary tree (e.g.

This is little different from light-sensitive cells in primitive eyespots accumulating energy from photons to "decide" the direction of the sun.

I think that white eyespots just would make preys more visible in the dusk and dawn, when the "90%" of predation events happen.

I think it's reasonable to think of eyes as a "new" organ that humans have and flatworms don't; and our eyes are clearly superior to flatworms' eyespots.