![]() ![]() ![]() Similar to well-known examples of toxic butterfly 2 and wasp 3 mimicry, the conspicuous red–black banded (RBB) colour pattern in some harmless snakes is thought to arise through mimicry of highly venomous coral snakes throughout North and South America 4. 1), brightly banded neotropical snakes were presented as the flagship example of ‘true mimicry' in vertebrates. In the first formalization of mimicry theory in the 1860s (ref. We also find that bidirectional transitions between mimetic and cryptic coloration are unexpectedly frequent over both long- and short-time scales, challenging traditional views of mimicry as a stable evolutionary ‘end point' and suggesting that insect and snake mimicry may have different evolutionary dynamics. Here we integrate distributional, phenotypic and phylogenetic data across all New World snake species to demonstrate that shifts to mimetic coloration in nonvenomous snakes are highly correlated with coral snakes in both space and time, providing overwhelming support for Batesian mimicry. However, mimicry of venomous coral snakes has remained controversial because of unresolved conflict between the predictions of mimicry theory and empirical patterns in the distribution and abundance of snakes. Batesian mimicry, in which harmless species (mimics) deter predators by deceitfully imitating the warning signals of noxious species (models), generates striking cases of phenotypic convergence that are classic examples of evolution by natural selection. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |