Over millions of years, many animals have evolved abilities such as camouflage or mimicry. These abilities are quite useful for protecting an animal or enabling it to catch prey more easily. Camouflage allows animals to blend in with their environment in one way or another. Mimicry is when an animal mimics the characteristics and behaviors of another animal. Both of these adaptations have the same purposes, but have different approaches to helping the animal with the ability. Today, we will explore the wild and wacky world of nature and learn how animals can protect themselves from predators and how to make catching prey easier.
Many animals have the ability to camouflage. For example, chameleons are famous for their ability to change their color. Whenever a predator or prey approaches, the chameleon rapidly changes color to blend in with the environment and stays basically invisible to the other animal. Another animal that camouflages is the stick insect. Its color is brown and it stays very still so that it looks like a stick. It remains like that until a predator leaves or a prey gets too close. Speaking of insects, there is a butterfly that disguises itself as a dried leaf by closing its wings so that only the brownish undersides of its wings are visible. Going into the deep sea area, Octopus Cyanea has sacs of pigment that allow it to strengthen some colors while hiding others. Meanwhile, a tropical harlequin filefish can change its scent by eating some coral, hiding its real identity. Camouflage allows an animal to hide from a predator or make it invisible to prey.
MImicry is when animals mimic another species’ behavior and appearance to trick a predator into leaving them alone or to lure a prey into a trap. One example of an animal that can mimic others is the viceroy butterfly, which adds some physical features to make themselves resemble monarch butterflies, which is highly poisonous and can lead to food poisoning if eaten. Speaking of butterflies, the larvae of an alcon blue butterfly mimics the smell of certain ant species to trick ants into carrying it into an anthill, and the butterfly larva eats the ant larvae. Going back into the sea world, a mimic octopus is able to mimic the venomous sole and deter predators from eating it. Another animal that mimics other species is the zone-tailed hawk. It has some characteristics not found in most birds of prey, making it resemble a turkey vulture, allowing it to approach its prey without triggering a flight response. This next being that uses mimicry is not an animal, it is a plant, a corpse flower. It mimics the smell and temperature of a decaying corpse in order to attract insects. When the insects leave, they carry corpse flower seeds with them and pollinate the seeds. Mimicry is what enables many creatures to survive and reproduce.
If I were a wild animal and could choose between camouflage and mimicry, I would choose mimicry. If I had the ability to mimic another animal, I could do it whenever and wherever I wanted. I could catch a prey by pretending to be its prey. I would not need to worry about not being able to move around, because my target would still think that I was its prey. However, with camouflage, I could only attack the prey within a certain radius, and I could not move very quickly or else the prey would detect me. It's the same thing when a predator approaches. With camouflage, rapid and loud movement would make me detectable. MImicry allows an animal to be more mobile than an animal that could camouflage.
Over the eons, animals have evolved various mechanisms to make it easier to hide from predators and to catch prey. Two of these methods are camouflage and mimicry. Camouflage is when an animal blends into its environment so that a nearby predator or prey does not notice it. Mimicry allows an animal to copy the physical appearance and behavior of another animal, tricking a predator into leaving its prey alone or luring prey into a trap that the victim does not realize until it is too late. Even though these abilities work in different ways, both of them have the same purposes: toprotect animals from predators and to make it easier for animals to catch their prey. One of the most important factors leading to animal suffering all over the world is human interference. If humans help in protecting the environment by reducing pollution and stop over-hunting, animal species that are endangered will make a comeback, and the global ecosystem will become as healthy as it once had been. Helping animals by taking good care of the environment is something that we can all agree on.
Comments