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The deadly Texas coral snake, Micrurus tener (the Emsleyan/Mertensian mimic) The harmless Mexican milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum annulata (the Batesian mimic) Emsleyan mimicry, also called Mertensian mimicry, describes an unusual type of mimicry where a deadly prey mimics a less dangerous species.
Emsleyan or Mertensian mimicry describes the unusual case where a deadly prey mimics a less dangerous species. [2] It was first proposed by M. G. Emsley in 1966 as a possible explanation for how a predator can learn to avoid a very dangerous aposematic animal, such as a coral snake , when the predator is very likely to die, making learning ...
Complicated forms of aggressive mimicry have also been observed in fish, creating a system that resembles Batesian mimicry. The false cleanerfish , Aspidontus taeniatus , is a fin-eating blenny that has evolved to resemble a local species of cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus , which engages in mutualistic cleaning with larger fish.
Included in defensive mimicry is the lesser known Mertensian mimicry, where the mimic is more harmful than the model, and Vavilovian mimicry, where weeds come to mimic crops through unintentional artificial selection. In defensive mimicry, the mimic benefits by avoiding a harmful interaction with another organism that would be more likely to ...
Defensive or protective mimicry enables organisms are able to avoid encounters that would be harmful to them by deceiving enemies by appearing to be something that they are not. For example, mantis shrimps spread their powerful front limbs to threaten rivals in a behaviour called the "meral spread". [ 6 ]
This is known as Batesian mimicry, after Henry Walter Bates, a British naturalist who studied Amazonian butterflies in the second half of the 19th century. [79] Batesian mimicry is frequency dependent: it is most effective when the ratio of mimic to model is low; otherwise, predators will encounter the mimic too often. [80] [81]
Apparent death is a form of animal deception considered to be an anti-predator strategy, but it can also be used as a form of aggressive mimicry. When induced by humans, the state is sometimes colloquially known as animal hypnosis.
The section on Emsleyan/Mertensian mimicry makes little sense as written. The sources it cites aren't available online and after a bit of googling I wasn't able to find any better explanation, so I'd really like for an expert on the subject to flesh out the section a little better.