Innes C. Cuthill (born 1960) is a professor of

behavioural ecology Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when ...

at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

. His main research interest is in

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

, in particular how it evolves in response to the

colour vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different frequencies independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of the larger visual system and is mediated by a co ...

of other animals such as

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

Life

Cuthill was educated at

University College School University College School, also known as UCS, is a private day school in Frognal, Hampstead, London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views. ...

, London. He gained a First in Natural Sciences (Zoology) at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, graduating in 1982 and gained his D.Phil. at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1985. He was a Junior Research Fellow at Brasenose College Oxford until 1989 when he became a lecturer at the

. He became a professor there in 1998 and was head of the School of Biological Sciences from 2008 to 2012.

Work

Cuthill describes himself as "wear ngtwo hats, behavioural ecologist and sensory ecologist", unified by seeking to explain the "design, through

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

, of animal form and function." He states that his main research interest is the

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

of one kind of animal, such as prey, in response to the colour vision of another kind of animal, such as a

. He has published over 250 research papers, mainly on vision and

, though he has also written on the use of statistics in biology, cited over 2700 times, and was co-author of the ARRIVE and ARRIVE2 guidelines for reporting the use of animals in research, cited over 10,000 times.

Awards and distinctions

Cuthill won the Scientific Medal of the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity and organization devoted to the worldwide animal conservation, conservation of animals and their habitat conservation, habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained London Zo ...

in 1998, the

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

and

NESTA Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is a British foundation, registered as a charity, which supports innovation. Nesta was originally funded by a £250 million endowment from the UK National Lotter ...

award for mentoring in science in 2005. From 2007 to 2010 he was president of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. He gave the Tinbergen Lecture of 2014 and won the 2018 ASAB medal for contributions to the science of animal behaviour. He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute of Advanced Studies) from 2015-16. Nakagawa & Cuthill (2007) was selected by Biological Reviews as one of their highlight papers of the last 200 years

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuthill, Innes English biologists 1960 births Living people Camouflage researchers People educated at University College School