Biological mimicry is when a species evolves to look like another species. There are numerous methods of how to mimic another species, visually, auditory and olfactory. The main reason to mimic another species is to avoid predators.





Batesian mimicry

Batesian mimicry is when a harmless species evolves to look like a dangerous predator by mimicking their warning signals i.e. colour pattern. The most dramatic example of Batesian mimicry is that of the Hawk Moth Caterpillar (Hemeroplanes triptolemus) and Pit Vipers (Crotalinae).

This species of hawk moth lives in the forests of Ecuador and can mimic venomous pit snakes when threatened. It does this by retracting its legs, inflating its body and it has eye shaped scales too. This mimicry fools all of its predators and humans too!

video by Andreas Kay





Locomotor mimicry

This is a subtype of Batesian mimicry where animals avoid predators by mimicking the behaviour of another species. The animal will either mimic a less beneficial prey or another predator itself!

My favourite example of this is the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus). The mimic octopus can alter its colour, shape and behaviour to imitate a variety of species to avoid predators. Species they mimic include, sea snakes, flounders and lionfish! Cephalopods are simply amazing and if you want to read more about them check out our article here .





video by Talal Masood

Acoustic mimicry

Predators do not only locate their prey through vision but sound too. Therefore, some mimics have evolved to deceive the hearing of their predators. The bat-moth interaction model best demonstrates acoustic mimicry. Tiger moths like Cycnia tenera are harmful to bats and emit ultrasonic warning signals which are acoustically mimicked by other species, for example Pyralidae moths. Bats avoid the harmful tiger moths and avoid other harmless species such as some pyralidae moths. Acoustic mimicry, both Batesian and Müllerian, will be widespread in the natural world.





Müllerian mimicry

Morphological diversity of wing patterns in Heliconius

Müllerian mimicry is when two or more harmful or unpalatable species develop similar appearances as a shared defence mechanism. This is different from Batesian mimicry in that all species are harmful to some degree.

The Heliconius butterflies (Nymphalidae: Heliconiinae) mimic other unpalatable species of butterfly local to their habitat, such as Melinaea, because doing so spreads the risk of loss to predators across species thus reducing the numbers lost whilst predators learn to avoid them. This mimicry can be the result of convergent evolution . But we will discuss this further in a future article!









Image by Joron M. et al 2006.

Mertensian mimicry

Mertensian mimicry is a rare and unusual type of mimicry, when a deadly predator mimics a less dangerous species. Mertensian mimicry provides a solution to a difficult problem- when a species is deadly it negates any learned behaviour from its predator. I.e. when the predator dies from eating its prey, it cannot learn from any of the warning signals from its prey nor modify future behaviours.

In this example you have the following species:

Milk snake (Lampropeltis Triangulum) = harmless

False coral snakes (genus Erythrolamprus) = mildly venomous

Coral snakes (genus Micrurus) = deadly

In this example the milk snake and the coral snakes are mimicking the false coral snakes! However, this theory is debated.

So there you have it, 5 incredible types of biological mimicry. What are your favourite biological mimics? We would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading.

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References

Losos, J.B., 2017. The Princeton guide to evolution. Princeton University Press.

Barber, J.R. and Conner, W.E., 2007. Acoustic mimicry in a predator–prey interaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(22), pp.9331-9334.

Joron, M., Jiggins, C.D., Papanicolaou, A. and McMillan, W.O., 2006. Heliconius wing patterns: an evo-devo model for understanding phenotypic diversity. Heredity, 97(3), pp.157-167.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/04/hawk-moth-caterpillar-snake-untamed-spd/

Greene, H.W. and McDiarmid, R.W., 1981. Coral snake mimicry: does it occur? Science, 213(4513), pp.1207-1212.