Dazzling butterflies, dazzled moths, and BehaveAI

Thursday, 4 June 2026, 2pm to 3pm

Despite centuries of debate and research, arguments still rage over why undefended butterflies are so visually conspicuous in flight. Our latest research suggests that typical butterfly wing markings create visual illusions for birds that make it look like they are flying ‘the “wrong” way’. Multiple lines of evidence from motion vision modelling to genetic algorithms, phylogenetic analysis and behavioural validation show that this strategy is evolutionarily widespread and effective for confusing predator attacks. I'll also cover some of our latest work on how light pollution affects the behaviour and activity of moths, with 3D flight tracking highlighting their complex responses when lights of different intensities and spectra become visible mid-flight. Finally, I'll briefly introduce BehaveAI; a video analysis framework that can reliably track animals and determine their behaviour from patterns of movement. It achieves this by converting patterns of motion into false colours, allowing both human annotators and neural nets to determine the shape, speed and acceleration of animals and their body parts in each frame, making for far more robust detection and classification of tiny (<2px) camouflaged targets.

Bio-Sketch:

Visual information underpins many of the decisions made by animals, influencing their ecology and evolution. I've investigated a wide range of hypotheses from camouflage to light pollution and sexual selection, from blue-sky to applied conservation focus. I've worked across a vast range of species and often develop new open-source tools with which to see through the eyes of other animals. My undergrad and Master's were at Oxford (Pembroke), then a PhD on New Caledonian Crows at Birmingham, post-docs at Cambridge and Exeter, and I'm now Associate Prof. at Exeter (Cornwall).

Speaker(s): Dr Jolyon Troscianko (Associate Professor at the University of Exeter)

Venue: The Life and Mind Building - The Life and Mind Building South Parks Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 3RB United Kingdom

Department: Biology (Department)

Organiser: Andrea Kastner

Host: Dr Robert Heathcote