crypsis
n.— «In those insect which gain protection from mechanisms other than crypsis (warning, threat and flash coloration), or even in those cryptic moths which benefit from resembling dead leaves, the melanics are rare, recessive, sub-lethal and are probably retained by recurrent mutation.» —“A Resume of Investigations on the Evolution of Melanism in the Lepidoptera” by H.B.D. Kettlewell Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences July 24, 1956. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
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