. The wonder of life . cters only, and that the mimicked aremore or less markedly safe and usually more or less con-spicuous. It goes without saying that the use of the termsmimicker and mimicked is entirely metaphorical, for themimetic resemblance is not deliberate. Students of mimicry are accustomed to distinguish severaltypes. Thus in Batesian Mimicry , first clearly defined bythe naturalist-traveller Bates, we have a palatable animalescaping in virtue of its superficial resemblance to unpalat-able forms, with striking features, which are rarely attackedand are greatly in the majority over
. The wonder of life . cters only, and that the mimicked aremore or less markedly safe and usually more or less con-spicuous. It goes without saying that the use of the termsmimicker and mimicked is entirely metaphorical, for themimetic resemblance is not deliberate. Students of mimicry are accustomed to distinguish severaltypes. Thus in Batesian Mimicry , first clearly defined bythe naturalist-traveller Bates, we have a palatable animalescaping in virtue of its superficial resemblance to unpalat-able forms, with striking features, which are rarely attackedand are greatly in the majority over the mimickers. Thebad reputation of ants gives a vicarious safety to severalant-hke spiders; the disagreeable taste of the mimickedbutterfly helps the survival of its palatable Doppel-Ganger. Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall observed a Dipterous fly, Ceriagambiana, visiting flowers in company with a formidablewasp, Polistes marginalis, and it seems reasonable to inferthat the fly profits by its likeness to the dangerous creature. THE DRAMA OF LIFE 33 with a bad reputation that it has come to associate all such cases single observations are unconvincing, butwhen similar cases accujnulate the argument gathers it is very interesting that J. Bourgeois should havenoticed Ceria conopsoides visiting the wounds on the trunkof a horse-chestnut in company with a wasp, Odyneruscrassicornis, a formidable insect. Both were visiting thetree with the same end—to hck the exudation; the flywas probably protected from certain enemies by its Bate-sian mimicry of the wasp. Another type of mimicry is called Miillerian, after thenaturaUst Fritz Miiller, and here we have a resemblancebetween several immune species living in the same is well illustrated among South American Lepidoptera, Danaids, Heliconids, and Acrseids, and it seems towork like a sort of mutual assurance. None are palatable,but by being like one another they spread the risk of beingexperimented on by inexp
Size: 1472px × 1697px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booksubjectzoology
