BIOL 225 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Colombian Four-Eyed Frog, Deimatic Behaviour, Iris Oratoria
22 May 2013
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Document Summary
Batesian mimicry, where an edible species resembles a distasteful or dangerous species. This is most common in insects such as butterflies. A familiar example is the resemblance of harmless hoverflies (which have no sting) to bees. M llerian mimicry, where two or more distasteful or dangerous animal species resemble each other. This is most common among insects such as wasps and bees (hymenoptera). Batesian mimicry was first described by 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. This is because even a small degree of protection reduces predation and increases the chance that an individual mimic will survive and reproduce. For example, many species of hoverfly are coloured black and yellow like bees, and are in consequence avoided by birds (and people). M llerian mimicry was first described by pioneering naturalist fritz m ller.
