The term is owed to Niko Tinbergen, who did his famous experiments with gulls, where he found that that orange spot on the gull’s beak -- if he made a bigger, oranger spot the gull chicks would peck at it even harder.
Este termo deve-se a Niko Tinbergen, que fez uma experiência  famosa com gaivotas, em que descobriu que, se aumentasse a mancha laranja no bico da gaivota as crias da gaivota iriam  bicá-la ainda mais.