Mimicry
Videos
In evolutionary biology, mimicry is the evolved resemblance of an organism to something else, often another organism of a different species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between in
Many insects including hoverflies (C, D, E) and the wasp beetle (F) are Batesian mimics of stinging wasps (A, B), which are Müllerian mimics of each other.
In 1879, Fritz Müller created the first mathematical model of mimicry to explain why distasteful species should evolve similar appearances.
Plate from Henry Walter Bates's 1862 paper illustrating Batesian mimicry between harmless Dismorphia species (top and third row) and distasteful Ithomiini (Nymphalidae, second and bottom row).
Mutual Müllerian mimicry in distasteful Heliconius butterflies. Plate LXII from Müller's collected writings, 1881
Müllerian mimicry
Videos
Müllerian mimicry is a type of biological mimicry in which two or more well-defended species, often foul-tasting and sharing common predators, converge in appearance to mimic each other's honest warni
Mimicry
…in other cases mimicry may make use of any of the senses. Most types of mimicry, including Batesian, are deceptive, as the mimics are not harmful, but Müllerian mimicry, where different harmful species resemble each other, is honest, as when species of wasps and of bees all have genuinely aposematic warning coloration…
The viceroy butterfly (top) appears very similar to the noxious-tasting monarch butterfly (bottom). Although it was for a long time purported to be an example of Batesian mimicry, the viceroy has recently been discovered to be just as unpalatable as the monarch, making this a case of Müllerian mimicry.
A common morph of Ranitomeya (Dendrobates) imitator is aposematically striped black and yellow, but in other areas, other morphs imitate differently coloured species.
Bombus terrestris
Bombus lucorum