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Eyespots could be explained in at least three different ways. They may be a form of mimicry in which a spot on the body of an animal resembles an eye of a different animal, to deceive potential predator or prey species. They may be a form of self-mimicry, to draw a predator's attention away from the prey's most vulnerable body parts. Or they ...
Mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. Often, mimicry functions to protect from predators. [11] Mimicry systems have three basic roles: a mimic, a model, and a dupe.
Aggressive mimicry stands in semantic contrast with defensive mimicry, where it is the prey that acts as a mimic, with predators being duped. Defensive mimicry includes the well-known Batesian and Müllerian forms of mimicry, where the mimic shares outward characteristics with an aposematic or harmful model. In Batesian mimicry, the mimic is ...
Müllerian mimicry was first identified in tropical butterflies that shared colourful wing patterns, but it is found in many groups of insects such as bumblebees, and other animals such as poison frogs and coral snakes. The mimicry need not be visual; for example, many snakes share auditory warning signals. Similarly, the defences involved are ...
Size difference may permit both sexes to exploit different niches. In elaborate cases of mimicry, such as the African butterfly Papilio dardanus, female morphs mimic a range of distasteful models called Batesian mimicry, [27] often in the same region. The fitness of each type of mimic decreases as it becomes more common, so the polymorphism is ...
Pseudocopulation by an insect on a flower is a result of Pouyannian mimicry, named after the French lawyer and amateur botanist Maurice-Alexandre Pouyanne. . [1] [2] This occurs in several orchids, whose flowers mimic the female mating signals of specific pollinator insects, such as bees. [3]
Top: An ant in Mozambique Bottom: An ant-mimicking spider, Myrmarachne Ant mimicry or myrmecomorphy is mimicry of ants by other organisms; it has evolved over 70 times. Ants are abundant all over the world, and potential predators that rely on vision to identify their prey, such as birds and wasps, normally avoid them, because they are either unpalatable or aggressive.
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.