Biologist James O’Hanlon tackles whether animals can intentionally deceive in his new book Liars, Cheats and Copycats: Trickery and Deception in Nature, published in 2026 by Columbia University Press, according to Live Science. The book examines tactical deception across the animal kingdom and questions why scientists remain hesitant to describe these behaviors as literal lying.
Evolutionary Deception Versus Human Lying
When studying creatures like orchid mantises that mimic flowers, O’Hanlon notes in Live Science that these insects do not need to consciously know they look like foliage for the camouflage to work. True tactical deception, however, implies a choice to manipulate what another animal believes. O’Hanlon points out that while behaviors in species like golden snub-nosed monkeys resemble intentional lying, researchers must avoid attaching human moral judgments of right and wrong to animal actions.
Social survival drives evolution of trickery
Traditional scientific thought held that lying required a large brain to imagine false possibilities and describe them as reality. However, experiments comparing chimpanzees to dogs in a 2017 study demonstrated that domestic dogs learned to mislead handlers faster than chimpanzees did. O’Hanlon explains that tactical deception predominantly appears in social animals rather than solitary ones, suggesting that trickery evolved as a tool for surviving and competing within a group setting rather than a byproduct of raw intelligence alone.
Cuttlefish deception challenges scientific bias
Invertebrates such as male cuttlefish exhibit complex tactical deception by displaying male color patterns on one side of their body and female patterns on the other to trick competing suitors. O’Hanlon tells Live Science that researchers initially met these findings with skepticism simply because the subjects were invertebrates. He argues that this reluctance stems from scientific caution and a historical bias toward viewing great apes as the primary agents of intelligent trickery.
Did You Know About Avian Deception?
Drongos cycle through multiple alarm calls and mimic other bird species to deceive meerkats out of food.
Frequently Asked Questions
What publisher released James O’Hanlon’s book on animal trickery?
Columbia University Press published Liars, Cheats and Copycats: Trickery and Deception in Nature in 2026, as reported by Live Science.
Do solitary animals engage in tactical deception?
According to O’Hanlon’s findings discussed in Live Science, tactical deception appears almost exclusively in social animals rather than solitary species, indicating it evolved for managing social group dynamics.
How do male cuttlefish deceive competing suitors?
Male cuttlefish can alter their body patterns to display male colors on one side and female colors on the other to mislead rivals.
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