We explain what the mimicry of living beings is, what it is for, types and examples. Also, differences between mimicry and camouflage.
What is mimicry?
Mimicry is the ability that they have certain living beings to superficially resemble others, with which they lack any taxonomic or evolutionary link. It is a survival mechanism designed to deceive the senses of the animals with which it is shared habitat, and induce in them some conduct determined.
Mimicry is a strategy common among living beings, both animals What vegetables, which allows them to avoid their predators, or maximize your strategies reproduction, hiding their true nature through visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile, etc. deception.
Like all other strategies biological competence, mimicry is the result of the selective pressures of the evolution joint of different species. Not to be confused with camouflage (crypsis).
Types of mimicry
There are three basic forms of mimicry, which are:
- Automimicry. It takes place when a living being disguises a part of its body with the appearance of another more vulnerable, to direct the attack of its eventual predators towards non-vital areas of the body. This allows them to survive the attack and escape, albeit sacrificing some non-vital region of the body.
- Aggressive mimicry. It consists of the copy by a predator or species parasitic, of the appearance of another harmless species, in order to disguise its nature and have easy access to its prey or host.
- Batesian mimicry. It occurs when an animal copies the appearance or behavior of another more dangerous or disgusting, in order to discourage the attacks of its predators. It gets its name from the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892), who was the first to study it.
- Mullerian mimicry. It consists of the similar appearance that two species different, endowed with the same defense mechanism (bad taste, poison, etc.) and the same predator, to guarantee greater survival. The predator will eat a single individual of either species and in the future will learn to avoid both. It is a collaborative mimicry and also gets its name from the leading student of its dynamics, the German biologist Fritz Müller (1821-1897).
Mimicry and camouflage
Rather than camouflage it, mimicry makes this flower attract male bees.
Mimicry and camouflage should not be confused. If the animal disguises itself as another, it is mimicry; if you acquire the colors from the bottom, it is camouflage.
Mimicry consists of copying the appearance or behavior of another living being for the benefit of the weakest.
Camouflage, on the other hand, aims to hide an individual in his environment, that is, to make him indistinguishable, generally through changes in coloration, structures imitative or apparent texture changes.
Examples of animal and plant mimicry
The spot that looks like an eye (ocellus) confuses the predators of this fish.Here are some examples of mimicry:
- Some species of butterflies What Mycalesis patnia, or fish like Chaetodon charioteerThey have round spots on their extremities (wings or fins) called ocelli. Round and black, they generally resemble the eyes of a predator, serving to scare off some attackers or to direct the attack towards non-vital regions of the body.
- Coral snakes, with an enormously poisonous bite, are imitated by false corals (Lampropeltis triangulum) by copying their colors, using this deception to ward off potential predators.
- The plants Ophrys speculum They have a flower that perfectly imitates the appearance of a female bee, to get the males to approach and transport the pollen to other plants of the same species.
- The orchid mantisHymenopus coronatus) is a ferocious predator that hides behind the appearance of an orchid, copying its colors and shapes to make itself indiscernible from it and thus hunt with less effort.