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 colouration and markings. ...
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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
bird would bother you either? That's ...
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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 poisonous
fluid. In the same jungle ...
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The Great Imposters. (2006, February 11). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Great-Imposters/41037
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"The Great Imposters." Essayworld.com. February 11, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Great-Imposters/41037.
"The Great Imposters." Essayworld.com. February 11, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Great-Imposters/41037.
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