As you know, nature does not create anything inappropriate. Any device that she endowed a living organism with is necessarily functional and practical. And from the camouflage abilities acquired by plants, insects, birds and other animals in the process of evolution, only those that reliably help survival remained. In order to understand what the essence of mimicry is, it is necessary to understand what it is and what it is intended for. SmiHub.com Browse Instagram with the best experience.
Types of mimicry
The disguise of living beings can be divided into groups according to different criteria. The first of these is the goals of mimicry, which are divided into two groups:
- Aggressive: The predator blends into the background to ambush its prey. Most often this is behavioral or color mimicry. Examples of hunting animals using it can be enumerated for a long time: the lion merges with the savanna, the stripes of the tiger make it invisible in the taiga, the polar bear is invisible against the background of ice and snow.
- Passive: designed to mask an edible animal. It is more complex, even if expressed only in color.
The types of mimicry according to the techniques used can be divided as follows:
- Color. Moreover, it can be not only disguising as a landscape, but also imitating other, dangerous species of fauna in the event that this is a passive disguise for the purposes.
- Mimicry of form - is characteristic of insects and marine inhabitants and is also defensive in terms of targets. It manifests itself in visual similarity with objects of nature "uninteresting" to the predator. There are no examples of such disguises among the higher animals. After all, what is the essence of form mimicry? In optical illusion. And mammals in hunting are guided mainly by smell.
- Sound mimicry. Also a protective look. It is expressed in imitation of the sounds of dangerous creatures. An example would be a rabbit slicker hissing like a snake.
Color mimicry
The most common form of disguise. The simplest option - merging with the surrounding background - is used for both aggressive and passive purposes. Most living creatures using this disguise "wear" color all their lives. However, there are also variations of color mimicry. The first is the seasonal color change. An example would be the white hare. An even more complex mechanism of camouflage in lower organisms, capable of changing color depending on the background on which they find themselves. To merge with the color of the surface is the essence of color mimicry. The most famous example is the chameleon, which is able to "paint" itself even in the colors of a checkerboard. But he is not alone in his skills: the caterpillar Smerinthus tiliae retains its green color while sitting on the leaf, and turns brown when traveling along the trunk.
Copying dangerous species
In principle, it also refers to color mimicry. However, the option is even more intricate. Disguises as poisonous and inedible species are used by insects, reptiles and amphibians. The most varied in this respect is the mimicry of butterflies. For example, a harmless white woman wears the colors of the wings of a poisonous heliconide. They can only be distinguished by their body structure. However, they copy not only relatives. The tropical butterfly Kaligo has a very convincing pattern on its wings, similar to the eyes of an owl.
Yet disguise as dangerous relatives is more popular in the living world. The analogue of our snake - the striated king snake - wears the war color of a deadly poisonous coral snake, and the harmless frog Allobates zaparo is painted like a very dangerous one called Epipedobates bilinguis. However, dinner "eyes" - spots on the top of the head - are also a deterrent.
The main condition that must be met for disguise “under threat” to work is that the number of mimics must be lower than the number of copied ones. Predators from time to time still "try on the tooth" inedible prey. And if it tastes at least half of the time, the protective coloration will cease to work.
Imitation of the environment
It is very common not only on land, but also in sea and ocean waters. To become like non-food is the essence of this type of mimicry. The round crab that uses it resembles a pebble, the palemon shrimp - brown pimpled algae of the Sargasso Sea, where it lives. Such mimicry can also be temporary, behavioral: the hiding octopus pulls in its tentacles, changes color (as we can see, there is even a combination of two types of disguise) and arch its "back". Result: before you is a boring and unnecessary stone.
Mimicry controversy
In recent years, many scientists have begun to doubt the reliability of this method of defense - at least imitative. The fact is that disguise-mimicry is based mainly on optical illusion. But even insectivorous birds are guided not only by visual images, but also by smell. Accordingly, if it smells good, they may not notice that the stick looks like a twig and eat it. Intimidating coloring, in their opinion, is more effective - the bird will not fly close enough to check if a real owl's eye is looking at it from a tree. Moreover, leaf-eating insects that feed on foliage often eat their congeners, confusing them with their natural food. And caterpillars, called land surveyors, are cut off by a gardener who confused them with sprouts. However, it is much easier to deceive a person than to deceive his natural enemies. However, from all that has been said, we can conclude that the question, what is the essence of mimicry, again remained unanswered.
