Aggressive mimicry
Videos
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
A camouflaged predator: snow leopard in Ladakh. The distinction between aggressive mimicry and predator camouflage depends on the signal given to the prey, not easily determined.
Defensive Batesian mimics, like this bumblebee-mimicking hoverfly, are the antithesis of aggressive mimics.
The alligator snapping turtle uses its tongue to lure fish.
Argiope argentata and its web
Brood parasitism
Videos
Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood p
Aggressive mimicry
…the model. There are two such variants on this arrangement of mimic imitating its target. In one case, Kirbyan mimicry, the model is the host of a brood parasite. In the other case, termed Batesian-Wallacian mimicry after Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace, the model is the prey species…
A shiny cowbird chick (left) being fed by a rufous-collared sparrow
Eastern phoebe nest with one brown-headed cowbird egg (at bottom left)
Four clutches of reed warbler eggs, each containing one visibly larger cuckoo egg
The goldeneye often lays its eggs in the nests of other females, one of 74 species of Anseriformes to do so.