Zebras and tigers have stripes, cheetahs and leopards have spots, and the ocellated lizard (Timon lepidus) boasts a labyrinthine pattern of black-and-green chains of scales. Now researchers from the ...

Meaning, scales can either be black or green and can only interact with those next to them. Under the Lenz-Ising model, scale color change in an ocellated lizard will always change from green to black ...

A simple, decades-old mathematical model developed by Alan Turing can predict how subtle colour patterns will develop in a lizard’s scaly skin. Over seventy years ago, the computer scientist Alan ...