Innes Cuthill, in collaboration with psychologists Julie Harris and George Lovell (University of St. Andrews) and theoretical biologist Graeme Ruxton (University of Glasgow) has been awarded a £400K BBSRC research grant to study 'countershading'. This is the, extremely widespread, type of coloration where an animal is darker on its back than its belly. Classically, this has been proposed to counteract the normal pattern of illumination (lighter on top) and so obliterate the clues to 3D shape that shadow would normally reveal. But whether other animals perceive shape from shading in the same way we do, and whether this is REALLY what countershaded coloration has evolved to achieve, is largely untested.