Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
For today’s biology lesson as I get my teeth cleaned, here’s a 20-minute video lesson about some salticids—the family of jumping spiders—that mimic ants. As you’ll see, this resemblance appears to be a form of Batesian mimicry, in which the spiders mimic toxic, unpalatable, or dangerous ants. The remarkable near-perfection of this mimicry, in which … Continue reading Ant- and wasp-mimicking jumping spiders
Over five years ago I wrote about a remarkable adaptation in insects: mimicry of snakes. Remember that “holometabolous” insects go through very different life stages, and this includes Lepidoptera, which have larvae that become pupae (also known as “chrysalises”), and out of those pupae hatch the winged adults. The larvae (“caterpillars”) are often highly edible … Continue reading A remarkable pupa that resembles a snake—and moves!
Tony Eales from Queensland came through with three batches of photos. Today we see the first one, whose theme is a subject dear to my heart—mimicry. Tony’s notes and IDs are indented; click photos to enlarge them. Remember that in Batesian mimicry an edible “mimic” evolves to resemble a visible and toxic or dangerous “model,” … Continue reading Readers’ wildlife photos
Planthoppers are in the order Hemiptera—the “true bugs”—along with cicadas and aphids, and are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. I’ve written about them before: they have all kinds of bizarre appearances that sometimes defy explanation (e.g., these ones). In 2012 I wrote a report about a strange planthopper (Formiscurra indicus) that mimicked an ant, but the kicker was … Continue reading A beautiful planthopper that mimics an ant (with a twist)
Tony Eales, who provided this morning’s mushroom photos, called my attention to this paper in the Israel Journal of Entomology, describing a remarkable case of mimicry seen in a newly described species of salticid (jumping spider). Click on the screenshot below to see the paper, or you can download the pdf here. It’s remarkable because, … Continue reading A remarkable case of mimicry: Jumping spider imitates caterpillar
Julius Csotonyi, described by Wikipedia as a Canadian “paleoartist” (illustrator of ancient life) and a natural history illustrator, has done some fantastic artwork, including producing dinosaur images for Canadian coins. You can see a lot of his art at his website. But now Csotonyi may have detected a case of Batesian mimicry between a tree frog … Continue reading Frog and snake: mimicry or not?
Here’s a weird case of mimicry—or potential mimicry—involving an onycophoran and a caterpillar in Ecuador. It’s in American Entomologist, and is free (click on screenshot below, or see the pdf here). First, in case you don’t know what an onycophoran is, it’s a group of 177 known species that occupy a single phylum, the Onycophora, which … Continue reading A caterpillar mimics an onycophoran
The nymphs (juvenile stages) of katydids—orthopterans from the family Tettigoniidae—nymphs look pretty much like miniature katydids; here’s a screenshot of what you see when you do a Google image search for “katydid nymph” (click to enlarge): But one species, at least, has modified its nymph stage to look like a hymenopteran. Here’s a photo by … Continue reading A remarkable case of mimicry: katydid nymph mimics ant
