There are many interesting examples of mimicry in nature, such as leaf mimicry. To illustrate nature’s diversity and make a case for conservation, I have put together some fascinating examples of mimicry found in nature.

Bee and wasp mimics: Organisms that have adapted to look like or mimic bees and wasps (which are potentially harmful organisms) do so to evade predation.  This type of defensive or protective mimicry is an example of Batesian mimicry.  According to Wikipedia, Batesian mimicry is “a form of mimicry typified by a situation where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator, [and] it is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work in the rainforests of Brazil [Emphasis added].”

Photo source for attribution here

For image credits and species information go here

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Ants as spiders and spiders as ants: Read more about ant mimicry here.

Wolf in sheep’s clothing: Ant spiders or ant-mimicking spiders use an aggressive form of mimicry to prey on ants. These ant spiders are fascinating, because they do not look like typical spiders.

Photo source for attribution here

Photo source for attribution here

Photo source for attribution here

Photo source for attribution here

Photo source for attribution here

The two above ant spider images are by Tomatoskin on Flickr and were found here and here

Sheep in wolf’s clothing: Spider ants look like spiders

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Mimicking bird droppings/bird-dropping mimics

Bird-dropping caterpillar

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Bird-dropping spider

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Lantana leafminer beetles (Octotoma scabripennis)

The image showing the leafminer beetles was taken by Peter Chew in Brisbane, and it was found here

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“Sexual deception” and orchids: The bee orchid (Ophrys apifera) is a hardy temperate European orchid that depends on a symbiotic relationship with a soil-dwelling fungus. The bee orchid also uses sexual deception to achieve pollination, since “the petals of this orchid have evolved to look like a female bee sitting on a flower.” According to Wikipedia, referencing Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker, “Male bees, over many generations of cumulative orchid evolution, have built up the bee-like shape through trying to copulate with flowers, and hence carrying pollen.”

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The fly orchid’s (Ophrys insectifera) lip is adapted to look like a “fly sitting in the middle of a flower, [and] there are two shiny blobs at the base of the lip that mimic the eyes of a fly.”

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Pollination in action: Images of wasps being duped by orchids:

The above image was found here

The above image was found here

VIDEO: David Attenborough explains how these bee or wasp mimics achieve sexual reproduction.

VIDEO: It seems that the Australian tongue orchid’s method of sexual reproduction is harmless to the pollinator, but “researchers now find males of a species called orchid-dupe-wasps go all the way with Australian tongue orchids, wasting their precious bodily fluids in the process.”

On the Net: British Orchids: The Insect Mimics

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Mertensian mimicry occurs when both a harmless and harmful species model from a moderately harmful species. For example, “some Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum) subspecies (harmless), the moderately toxic False Coral Snakes (genus Erythrolamprus), and the deadly Coral Snakes all have a red background color with black and white/yellow stripes, [and] in this system, both the milk snakes and the deadly coral snakes are mimics, whereas the false coral snakes are the model.”

Folk culture has developed rhymes to help differentiate the venomous coral snake from non-venomous species. For example: Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, venom lack.  However, these folk rhymes only work in certain areas and with some species, since variability in color patterns amongst the poisonous coral snakes and non-venomous species occur. According to Wikipedia, these folk rhymes “only reliably [apply] to coral snakes native to North America: Micrurus fulvius (Eastern or common), Micrurus tener (Texas), and Micruroides euryxanthus (Arizona), found in the southern and eastern United States, [so] coral snakes found in other parts of the world can have distinctly different patterns, have red bands touching black bands, have only pink and blue banding, or have no banding at all.”

A venomous Central American coral snake (Micrurus nigrocinctus)

Photo source for attribution here

A moderately venomous false coral snake (Erythrolamprus bizona)

The image above was found here

The harmless New Mexico milksnake (Lampropeltis triangulum celaenops)

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A non-venomous northern scarlet snake (Cemophora coccinea copei)

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Batesian mimicry in mammals: The less aggressive Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) mimicking the more aggressive striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena). Can you identify or differentiate which species is which?

The striped hyena image is by Arpit – The Waders on Flickr, and the aardwolf image is by Dkaeuferle (Dominik Käuferle), and it was found here.

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