Mimicry In Nature
THE GREAT IMPOSTERS
Finding good day care can certainly pose a problem these days, unless,
of course, you're an African widow bird. When it comes time for a female
widow bird to lay her eggs, she simply locates the nest of a nearby
Estrildid finch and surreptitiously drops the eggs inside.
That's the last the widow bird ever sees of her offspring. But not to
worry, because the Estrildid finch will take devoted care of the abandoned
birds as if they were her own.
And who's to tell the difference? Though adult widow birds and
Estrildid finches don't look at all alike, their eggs do. Not only that,
baby widow birds are dead ringers for Estrildid finch chicks, both having
the same ...
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squirrels
that look like shrews, worms copying sea anemones, and roaches imitating
ladybugs. There are even animals that look like themselves, which can also
be a form of impersonation.
The phenomenon of mimicry, as it's called by biologists, was first
noted in the mid-1800s by an English naturalist, Henry W. Bates. Watching
butterflies in the forests of Brazil, Bates discovered that many members of
the Peridae butterfly family did not look anything like their closest
relatives. Instead they bore a striking resemblance to members of the
Heliconiidae butterfly family.
Upon closer inspection, Bates found that there was a major advantage
in mimicking the Heliconiids. Fragile, slow-moving and brightly coloured,
the Heliconiids are ideal targets for insectivorous birds. Yet, birds
never touch them because they taste so bad.
Imagine that you're a delicious morsel of butterfly. Wouldn't it be
smart to mimic the appearance of an unpalatable Heliconiid so that no ...
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inspect an ant colony, and chances are you'll find a few
interlopers that aren't really ants at all but copycat spiders (or wasps or
flies). One way you might distinguish between host and guest is by counting
legs: Ants have six legs while spiders have eight. Look carefully and you
might see a few spiders running around on six legs while holding their
other two out front like ant feelers. COPYCATS
Mimicry can not only be a matter of looking alike, it can also involve
acting the same. In the Philippine jungle there is a nasty little bug, the
bombardier beetle. When threatened by a predator, it sticks its back end in
the air, like a souped-up sports car, and lets out a blast of ...
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Mimicry In Nature. (2006, July 31). Retrieved November 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mimicry-In-Nature/50013
"Mimicry In Nature." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 31 Jul. 2006. Web. 23 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mimicry-In-Nature/50013>
"Mimicry In Nature." Essayworld.com. July 31, 2006. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mimicry-In-Nature/50013.
"Mimicry In Nature." Essayworld.com. July 31, 2006. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mimicry-In-Nature/50013.
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