Review – Liars, Cheats and Copycats, by James O’Hanlon

The best popular science books not only reveal marvellous things about our world, and surprise us with the latest findings, but also ask questions we can’t answer yet. James O’Hanlon’s Liars, Cheats and Copycats manages all three in a relaxed, good-humoured and unpretentious style that makes the book an engaging and thoroughly entertaining read.

Author, James O’Hanlon

In uncovering ‘trickery and deception in nature’, O’Hanlon, artist, scientist, storyteller and author of Silk and Venom, goes well beyond the mysteries of tigers’ stripes, clever camouflage and defensive strategies to avoid harm or trick the unwary.

Do zebras’ distinctive look-at-me stripes disguise them from predators? No, but the answer isn’t obvious, and the real predator that zebras confound with those unmissable hides is one that took science to a surprising conclusion.

There are so many types of camouflage – some to attract or misdirect, chemical camouflage to hide or lure, behavioural trickery to win out over rivals for resources, auditory deception and many others beyond the range of our human senses.

Incredibly, plants too are able to deceive, confuse or disappear to attract or repel whom they, and the processes of evolution, choose. There are orchids that gaslight insects to manipulate the sex ratios of their pollinators to increase their number. There is an incredible vine whose leaves mimic whatever plant or tree they’re growing across to look less delicious, in the same way a chameleon or cuttlefish might change shape and colouration to blend in.

The strategies are so many, and some so sophisticated, that the author, like most field botanists and biologists, asks a forbidden question: can animals lie?

There is an unwritten law in biology to never anthropomorphise – to never attribute human-like behaviours to other fauna or flora – so the strict answer is ‘no’. But, keep topping up O’Hanlon’s glass and, toward the end of the evening, you might just get a more nuanced, even emphatic, bar-thumping answer to the positive.

There is the marvellous ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of camouflage and deception, the stunning mechanisms of evolution that produce literal wonders, but, as in all sciences, there are always more unanswered questions to ask. And that, my friends, is what science is about – curiosity, uncertainty and the discovery of better questions to ask.

Another marvellous little book from O’Hanlon, and a great preface to any time spent in the natural world to ensure you’ll be asking ‘what am I seeing’ and ‘what am I not?’

Liars, Cheats and Copycats, by James O’Hanlon

NewSouth Publishing, ISBN: 9781761170171, 240pp, RRP: $34,99

B.P. Marshall is a scriptwriter and author.

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