What you see: Scientists use human perception to define bumble bee mimicry

Despite the broad recognition of mimicry among bumble bees, distinct North American mimicry rings have yet to be defined, due in part to the prevalence of intermediate and imperfect mimics in this region. Scientists employ a generalization approach using human perception to categorize mimicry rings among North American bumble bees. They then then map species distributions on North American ecoregions to visually test for geographic concordance among similarly-colored species.