

Sign up
Here's how it works:
  1. Anybody can ask a question
  2. Anybody can answer



One example that comes close is DNA. But I see DNA as a form of encoding, not encryption.

share|improve this question
@KarnRatana: encryption implies the concept of "secrecy". You encrypt data so that only a certain individual or group of individuals can access it using a certain key. See also… . It is difficult to imagine a biological situation where secrecy would be an issue. – nico Feb 20 '13 at 10:17
@KarnRatana The question is very interesting but I think it is currently unclear. Would you consider machiavelan intelligence in primates (I groom an individual but I hiding form another individuals when doing so) and camouflage or mimicry as examples of encryption when only individuals of the same species are able to see/disantangle? Can you please try to accurately define encryption for its application to biology? – Remi.b Nov 23 '15 at 3:20




share|improve this answer


share|improve this answer


share|improve this answer


share|improve this answer

I actually think I may have come up with a biological analogy to encryption.

If you define encryption as taking information, breaking it up into random pieces or just small packets of data, that are sent on their way and when they reach a source are put back together based on a key, so that unintended recipients cannot interpret the information, then I would say that how the senses process the information that we experience, process it, send it along its way and then it is recompiled to form our experience of reality, is something akin to encryption/decryption.

Take vision. Our eye receives and focuses photons of light into electrochemical signals that get relayed to the visual cortex. In the visual cortex, that data is reassembled into our experience of reality of the world around us.

If, experimentally, we were able to tap into that signal running along the optic nerve and tried to interpret it just from the data flow, then it is unlikely that we would be able to reproduce the image being collected the way we could read the electrical impulse being transmitted from a CMOS or CCD sensor chip. I say this because our visual system is predictive. There is actually more information generated by the visual cortex than is being received and transmitted from the eyes.

We develop these keys in early child development and lay down these neural networks so that we are able to build and interpret an image without all of the data. This is how we can navigate through the world, drive a car, fly a jet fighter and cope with the signal delay that is inherent in the system. This may be more an example of compression of signal, but a compressed signal without the correct decompression algorithm would be a rudimentary form of encryption.

We can also see, with synesthesia, that when there is crosstalk between the regions of the brain that are are different from the norm, messages will be perceived in possibly unintended ways. Letters and numbers have colors, sounds produce visual imagery, etc.

share|improve this answer

Not sure we can name it encryption, but



share|improve this answer

Predator prey situations are assumed to have a reason for encryption, as they have signaling. Thus could be the change in appearance of a coiling snake, not only preparing to strike, but sending fake codes to prey at the same time, or coiling differently for mating.

On the recieving side, the timing of the length of gaze and head movements of deer in the midst of observing a scene might be considered cryptoanalysis, as they absorb and process data and carefully select responses and countermeasures.

share|improve this answer


Please add some references to support your answer. – WYSIWYG Nov 23 '15 at 5:08

Interspecies communication at the human level obviously includes cryptography, it could be surmised that most animals and plants probably do some version of communication and hence, some cryptography (as all have predators.) The aforementioned viral example seems very apt, also interesting might be communication within a larger group, biofilm exhibiting herd-like communication in the presence of complex predators or anti-biotics for example. If whales communicate in the ocean, perhaps bacteria and viruses communicate and encrypt non-chemically in biofilm and hosts.

share|improve this answer
This is comment rather than answer. – Dexter Nov 16 '15 at 6:30

Your Answer


