The last study from the Milinkovitch’s lab uses reaction-diffusion (RD) numerical simulations in three-dimension on realistic lizard skin geometries and demonstrates that skin thickness variation on its own is sufficient to cause scale-by-scale coloration and cellular automaton dynamics during RD patterning. In addition, Anamarija Fofonjka and Michel Milinkovitch show that this phenomenon is robust to RD model variation. Finally, they show that animal growth affects the scale-colour flipping dynamics.

The article was published in the journal Nature Communications, on April 23^rd2021.