Blue jays were used in laboratory experiments to determine what visual characteristics of Catocala hindwings are important in eliciting and maintaining startle reactions in avian predators. Hand-reared blue jays, inexperienced with warningly coloured, inedible prey, took significantly longer to touch novel colours that possessed bold, black bands than to touch novel, unbanded colours when these discs covered a food reward. Thus, being conspicuous (as opposed to simply being novel) appears to enhance startle reactions. Bold patterns are commonly found on aposematic prey and Catocala hindwings. These same hand-reared birds also tended to take longer to touch novel coloured discs of yellow and red hues as opposed to discs of blue, green, or purple hues. The colours that produced the greatest hesitation are similar to the colours found on Catocala hindwings. Red-yellow colours are also characteristic of aposematic prey. Wild-caught birds took longer to habituate to startling stimuli when presented with several different startling disc types during the habituation process. Thus, predator pressure may explain why several different Catocala species with different hindwing colours occur sympatrically.

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Very few studies have used an evolutionary approach to help understand fictional heroes, and none have directly addressed how the sex of the author might influence the characteristics of the hero. If evolved behavioral differences in the sexes have influenced the subconscious tendencies of human males and females, these differences should be reflected in the fictional characters each creates. Based on sexual selection and inclusive fitness theory, I predicted that females will be more likely than males to create heroes who have family members, and that family members will be more important in the plotlines of female-generated stories. Information collected from twenty children's fantasy novels published after 1994 display the predicted trends. In addition, male authors often created parents who were problematic (insane, irresponsible, or evil), something the female authors never did. Further, rebellion, revenge or anger were emotions that commonly initiated the action in male-generated stories, but not female-generated stories. If these trends represent a true difference in how males and females visualize heroes, further study into hero differences based on the sex of the author may provide information of interest to those who study gender issues and evolutionary psychology.

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Cultural and psychological perspectives have been used to examine the characteristics of modern fictional heroes, but rarely if ever has an evolutionary approach been applied to this topic, an approach that could be quite enlightening. Evolutionary psychology suggests that sexual selection will have shaped differences in the underlying behavioral tendencies of males and females. Specifically, the higher parental investment of females makes establishing dominance more valuable to males and the helping of family members more valuable for females. If this is true, evolved differences manifesting themselves in the subconscious could influence the characteristics of the fictional heroes created by each sex. Here, I use a preliminary examination of female superheroes from the popular media to help frame an exploration of these predicted sex differences, which is followed by a more systematic approach examining heroes found in recent children's fantasy novels. If there are evolved differences, the female heroes created by men are expected to be more physically powerful and exhibit more displays of physical power than those created by women. In addition, the primary goal of the two types should also differ, with female-generated heroes displaying more concern for family members. Analyzing these characters using evolutionary psychology is compared to previous approaches. If the evolutionary approach proves to be valid, this new method of hero comparisons should be of interest to those studying gender issues and role models for girls.