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| By stotting (also called pronking), a springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) signals honestly to predators that it is young, fit, and not worth chasing. |
How confident do you have to be to do this?
Part of signalling theory, this is called honest signalling.
Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between individuals, both within species and across species. The central question is how organisms with conflicting interests, such as in sexual selection, are expected to provide honest signals rather than deceive or cheat, given that the passing on of pleiotropic traits is subject to natural selection, which aims to minimize associated costs without assuming any conscious intent. Mathematical models describe how signalling can contribute to an evolutionarily stable strategy.
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