Menagerie of Mimics: Animals Don a Variety of Disguises to Avoid Predation [Slide Show]
Animals employ many kinds of disguises for self-protection, including chemical and acoustic mimicry of other species
By The Editors
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
You might have learned about mimicry in high school biology class. If so, perhaps you encountered the viceroy butterfly, whose wing pattern matches the monarch's. Or maybe you came across the scarlet king snake, whose vivid coloring resembles the Eastern coral snake's. These are the classic examples of the phenomenon, which helps organisms to avoid predation. More recently, scientists have identified chemical, acoustic and even behavioral forms of mimicry, as this article in the May issue of Scientific American explains.
Meet some of these new mimics in this slide show.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
