It only takes a split second for a hunter to decide to turn its attention to the tasty morsel that’s just darted before it. But what is it that catches an amphibian’s eye? Ursula Dicke decided to tempt salamanders to find out what they are looking for in a good meal. The best recipe seems to be the bigger and faster the prey, the stronger its allure.
Dicke and her colleague Niklas Schülert tempted salamanders by showing them a variety of movies, ranging from running crickets to mobile rectangles. Dicke showed each salamander two simultaneous images, with one moving left and the other right. She manipulated the size, speed and shapes of the moving objects, to assess which aspects of the images attracted the salamanders most.
Not surprisingly, the salamanders were most alert to large and fast running crickets. But, a cricket-sized rectangle seemed to interest the salamander almost as...
