Caterpillars

Sometimes it pays to look like a pile of poop. At least if you're a tasty [caterpillar:moth] trying to avoid getting eaten by hungry birds. Because a study in the journal Science shows that even young chicks tend to overlook [caterpillars:moths] disguised as dung.Animals have come up with some pretty clever tricks for keeping [themselves:free] off a predator's dinner plate. Some use camouflage, [adopting:appearing] colours and patterns that help them blend into the environment. Others masquerade as something inedible, like bird [droppings:pulses] or twigs. But scientists got to wondering whether the two approaches are really so different. Maybe critters dressed as twigs also "blend in" so that predators just don't see them. To find out, scientists presented some twiggy-looking caterpillars to two sets of hand-reared [chicks:adults] .