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A Batesian mimic, such as a hoverfly, is harmless, while its model, such as a wasp, is harmful, and is avoided by the dupe, such as an insect-eating bird. Birds hunt by sight, so the mimicry in that case is visual, but in other cases mimicry may make use of any of the senses.
Deception in animals is the voluntary or involuntary transmission of misinformation by one animal to another, of the same or different species, in a way that misleads the other animal. The psychology scholar Robert Mitchell identifies four levels of deception in animals.
Aggressive mimicry compared to a defensive form, Batesian mimicry.The mechanism is often called "Wolf in sheep's clothing".The model for an aggressive mimic can be a harmless species, in which case the 3 roles are separate, or the model can be the prey itself, in which case there are only 2 species involved.
In Batesian mimicry, the mimic effectively copies the coloration of an aposematic animal, known as the model, to deceive predators into behaving as if it were distasteful. [a] The success of this dishonest display depends on the level of toxicity of the model and the abundance of the model in the geographical area.
Shimmering behaviour of Apis dorsata (giant honeybees). A group of animals fleeing from a predator shows the nature of herd behavior, for example in 1971, in the oft-cited article "Geometry for the Selfish Herd", evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton asserted that each individual group member reduces the danger to itself by moving as close as possible to the center of the fleeing group.
Synchronous behavior is also threatened when animals in a mixed-sex herd have differing nutritional or physical necessities. This causes group instability which often splits the herd up into two separate groups; generally all male and all female, to recreate the mimetic behavior in a smaller, same-sex group that has more similar needs to the individual. [5]
Tactical deception has been used as a measure of advanced social cognition, as it relates to brain function. Primates have larger brains, relative to body size, than in any other mammal except for dolphins, and this size difference is mainly due to an enlarged neocortex.
Humans also often seek to mimic animals' communicative signals in order to interact with them. For example, cats have a mild affiliative response of slowly closing their eyes; humans often mimic this signal towards a pet cat to establish a tolerant relationship. Stroking, petting and rubbing pet animals are all actions that probably work ...