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 ...

Why do giraffes have spots? And what governs their shape and pattern—are they inherited? Perhaps surprisingly, these are riddles that scientists haven’t yet solved. This lack of certainty led ...

What happens if you cross a fish that has white spots on a black body with another fish that has black spots on a white body? You might think that you’d get a fish with a single uniform colour, or one ...