But the best example is this moth.
It looks like what is bird poop at the bottom of the wings and what look like two house flies pointing down lapping it up.
PC
Read Alex's post about it here
myrmecos.net/2011/08/30/a-m
Conversation
Alright. So let's up the game. So here's some background.
You know when you see a potentially stinging thing. There's usually things you look for. Like orange. Or stripes.
Fir0002 GFDL 1.2 pic.twitter.com/jnaYhy5Lsv
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This is called Mรผllerian mimicry.
Toxic / poisonous / venomous / dangerous animals tend to look like each other. This enforces pattern recognition.
You can see this within wasps / bees. The textbook example is the Heliconius butterflies.
PC: Meyer A, PLoS Biology
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The other side of this is Batesian Mimicry.
A non harmful thing mimics a harmful thing. Basically banking on that predators have learned established patterns.
Here are a bunch of hover flies. (Syrphidae) They're all are generalized bee mimics.
PC Alvesgaspar CC by SA 3.0
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In old textbooks you'll find that we thought the Viceroy butterfly (top) was a batesian mimic (not harmful) of the monarch. However a study in the 90's showed that both the viceroy and the monarch are toxic making them mullierian mimics
Pc DRosenbach CC by SA 3.0
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Some of the most common batesian mimics are flies mimicking bees.
Here's a convincing syrphid fly.
PC: Copyright ยฉ 2015 Joy Markgraf
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But lots of things have mimics. Tarantula Hawks have one of the worst stings in the insect world. But it has a little katydid mimic (left) that is harmless.
PC:
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We think that butterflies have eye spots because they mimic vertebrate eyes that might otherwise be a predator to their predator. Owl Butterflies (Caligo sp.)
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Replying to
How do you get butterflies to hang off your fingers like that? Or are these dead ones?
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They're in a butterfly garden. Born and raised so they're pretty lazy and are super chill with people.
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Yup! Bugs are totally trainable. Maybe I should do a thread on this ...
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Yes please. I thought you needed rat-sized mammalian brain at the minimum to do any sort of behavioral conditioning
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