How the stingray got its spots

Science - Pete Wilton | 26 Nov 10. Patterns are everywhere in the animal kingdom but understanding the mechanisms that produce them is a real challenge. In this week's Physical Review E Thomas Woolley and Ruth Baker of Oxford University's Mathematical Institute report on mathematical simulations that may explain how stingrays generate their distinctive spots. I asked Thomas about this work and the relationship between maths and nature's spots and stripes: OxSciBlog: What are the challenges in reproducing these patterns? - Thomas Woolley: The biology! Mathematically, we have a number of models that produce qualitatively the same patterns as animal skins. However, there are currently no specific biological examples which can be unequivocally linked to the maths. The specific difficulty with stingrays, which is why they have not been considered before, is that their spots have a dark halo around the central spot. The BVAM model is one of the first biological pattern formation systems that is able to produce this dark halo.