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Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates , who worked on butterflies in the rainforests of Brazil.
This is the analogue of Batesian mimicry within a single species, and occurs when there is a palatability spectrum within a population. Examples include the monarch and the queen from the subfamily Danainae, which feed on milkweed species of varying toxicity. These species store toxins from its host plant, which are maintained even in the adult.
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 ...
Batesian mimicry, named for the 19th century naturalist Henry Walter Bates who first noted the effect in 1861, "provides numerous excellent examples of natural selection" [16] at work. The evolutionary entomologist James Mallet noted that mimicry was "arguably the oldest Darwinian theory not attributable to Darwin."
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 ...
For example, the hornet moth is a deceptive mimic of the yellowjacket wasp; it resembles the wasp, but has no sting. A predator which avoids the wasp will to some degree also avoid the moth. This is known as Batesian mimicry, after Henry Walter Bates, a British naturalist who studied Amazonian butterflies in the second half of the 19th century ...
Study of mimicry in plants broadened in the 21st century, with the discovery of Batesian mimicry in plants in 2003, [10] and crypsis or leaf mimicry in 2014. [1] Until then, mimicry in plants was studied infrequently, both because it is uncommon and because botanists considered mainly physical factors in plant ecology.
Examples include many moth, butterfly, and fish species that have "eye-spots". These are large dark markings that help prey escape by causing predators to attack a false target. For example, the gray hairstreak (Strymon melinus) shows the false head at its rear; it has a better chance of surviving an attack to that part than an attack to the head.