Nature’s full of illusionists, and they’re not all hiding in plain sight by accident. Across the animal kingdom, creatures have evolved remarkable ways to stay alive by blending in, standing out, or ...

Animals come in an extraordinary range of body shapes. A starfish looks nothing like an earthworm, a mouse, or a human. Yet even closely related species can appear radically different: corals, ...

Inspired by the theories of D’Arcy Thompson, scientists combined theoretical and experimental approaches to establish ‘mechanotypes’ as the physical links between genes and body shapes. Pictured are ...