Readers’ wildlife photographs

First, we have three birds, part of a large series (more soon) by reader Damon Williford:

Three members of the cuckoo family breed here [South Texas], including the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Greater Roadrunner, and Groove-billed Ani, which gets my vote for the goofiest looking bird in the world (but possibly tied with the Hoatzin for that honor). The only other place in the US where 3 species of cuculids co-occur is Florida.

The yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus):

The greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus):

The groove-billed ani (Crotophaga sulcirostris). Is this really the goofiest-looking bird in the world?

Reader Dom sent a mimic:

I took these photos in July, 2014, in a friend’s garden in Royston, just south of Cambridge.  It was a few inches from a nest of Lasius niger black pavement ants that were swarming with flying males and females.  This is Myrmecoris gracilis, and is a hemipteran.  In the British Isles it is, according to the best general insect guide (Michael Chinery’s CollinsComplete Guide to British Insects), quite rare and confined to dry grassland in the south of England. If we can trust Wikipedia, it is found across Eurasia, & was named by the Finn, Rheinhold F. Sahlberg, who was from a family of entomologists.

Now the curious thing is that they are flightless – well, mostly.  So how do they spread?  It seems that some are macropteran or macropterous.  That was a new term to me but one I imagine you know – occasionally they produced winged forms which can spread.  There is a picture of a winged form here on the Encyclopedia of Life.

Notice the illusion of a “waist” caused by lighter coloration of the thorax:

Just to show a closer photo, here’s a photo from Wikipedia and a few words about how a Hemipteran (a “true bug”) has evolved an ant-mimicking morphology.

The adult insects resemble ants of the genus Formica, the larvae dark Lasius ant species. The appearance of a typical hymenopteran “waist” is created by the paler coloration of the back of the thorax, contrasting with the rest of the body which is mainly black. They are often found together with ants, to which they have a convincing but superficial resemblance. The long rostrum is held inconspicuously beneath the head.

Dom added, in a subsequent email, some remarks about the imperfection of mimicry:

Do you recall this article from last year?  “Stimulus Salience as an Explanation for Imperfect Mimicry“ – they said a mimic does not need to be perfect to be advantageous…I also note someone has added some recent photos to his website, nicer than mine –

I am puzzled though by what advantage this insect gets by looking like a Lasius ant.  They are not stinging ants like red ants…

Readers can weigh in here, though the “waist” illusion suggests that the mimicry has something to do with visual predation, since ants wouldn’t be fooled by it.