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The camouflage of snakes, female birds that "undertake the duty of incubation", birds' eggs, mammals, fish, and marine molluscs is briefly covered. Chapter 6 Aggressive Resemblances — Adventitious Protection. The camouflage of predators including lizards, angler fish, mantises including Hymenopus bicornis and
Methods include camouflage, nocturnality, subterranean lifestyle and mimicry. Crypsis can involve visual, olfactory (with pheromones) or auditory concealment. When it is visual, the term cryptic coloration, effectively a synonym for animal camouflage, is sometimes used, but many different methods of camouflage are employed in nature.
Many insects including hoverflies (C, D, E) and the wasp beetle (F) are Batesian mimics of stinging wasps (A, B), which are Müllerian mimics of each other. In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or ...
This is most common among insects such as wasps and bees (hymenoptera). Batesian mimicry was first described by the pioneering naturalist Henry W. Bates. When an edible prey animal comes to resemble, even slightly, a distasteful animal, natural selection favours those individuals that even very slightly better resemble the distasteful species.
The distinction between aggressive mimicry and predator camouflage depends on the signal given to the prey, not easily determined. Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry in which predators , parasites , or parasitoids share similar signals , using a harmless model, allowing them to avoid being correctly identified by their prey or host .
Similarly, the katydids, a group of grasshopper-like insects found worldwide, are nocturnal and use their cryptic colouration to remain unnoticed during the day. They remain perfectly still, often in a position that increases the effectiveness of their camouflage. [12] [13]
Some reptiles, such as the sand lizard of Europe, have eyespots; in the sand lizard's case, there is a row of spots along the back, and a row on each side. [12]Many species of cat, including Geoffroy's cats, jungle cats, pampas cats, and servals, have white markings, whether spots or bars, on the backs of their ears; it is possible that these signal "follow me" to the young of the species.
The walking leaf insects from the Indo-Pacific region resemble tree leaves in appearance and posture.In biology, mimesis (from ancient Greek μίμησις mímēsis, "imitation") [1] is a form of crypsis where living creatures mimic the form, colour and posture of their surroundings to avoid being noticed from their surroundings by predators depending on sight. [2]