There’s a reason fashion designers look to animal prints for inspiration. Creatures have evolved a dizzying array of patterns: stripes, spots, diamonds, chevrons, hexagons and even mazelike designs.

Some patterns arise simply or randomly, but others develop via complex, precise interactions of pattern-generating systems. Their beauty aside, the intricacies of these systems are inspiring the ...

Scientists may have finally solved the mystery of how some animals get their stripes and spots. There are many animals that have these patterns on their skin or fur—including tigers, zebras and the ...

For Rudyard Kipling, the answer of how zebras got their stripes was simple: to hide from predators in the dark and dappled forest of the High Veldt in Africa. But now there's a more scientific ...

Nature has no shortage of patterns, from spots on leopards to stripes on zebras and hexagons on boxfish. But a full explanation for how these patterns form has remained elusive. Now engineers at CU ...

Nature is full of many patterned animals, from the stripes on zebras, spots on leopards, to the intricate details on sea creatures. Researchers have studied for a long time the biological explanation ...

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The natural world presents a palette of beautiful complexity. From the ...

How did animals get their spots and stripes? New research upgrades Alan Turing’s theory on the formation of skin patterns. When Ben Alessio visited the Birch Aquarium in San Diego, he found an ...

New research helps explain how sharp patterns form on zebras, leopards, tropical fish and other creatures. Their findings could inform the development of new high-tech materials and drugs. Nature has ...

Animal stripes and spots might look decorative, but they’re the result of deeply complex biological processes that begin long before an animal is born. These patterns aren’t painted on by chance. They ...