June 26th, 2017: Tricksy Critters

[xoxoxoBruce]

I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes!
Of course you did, but did you see what you think you saw?

When god plunked every living critter on Earth, the 4th/5th days 7000 years ago, (I’ll bet he/she made some ahead of time
and stashed them in his/her locker) he/she sure made a mess of critters. Of course all the proto-critters people keep digging
up were probably made the same day as the solid land, so he/she had that going for him/her.

All these millions of critters must have been hard to keep straight, so there might have been some overlap. You know, rush job,
a lot to do, invariably some color drips here and there, but no big deal. Hey Jackson Pollock, you dripped. Yeah, right.

The lab coat brigade and their camo field agents, have been sorting them out into groups by traits, among other things.
Three of the traits are ways to trick their fellow critters, so they can eat while not be eaten.

Crypsis.
A tricksy Baron caterpillar on a leaf.



Batesian mimicry
Where a harmless species has evolved were created to imitate the warning signals of a bad tasting/poisonous/combative species.



Masquerade.
Prey animals looking like inedible or inanimate objects native to the area like twigs, leaves, stones or bird-droppings.
This defensive strategy has been called lots of names like special resemblance, procryptic resemblance, plant part mimicry,
and concealing imitation, but some pros sat around having a few beers and pretty much agreed on ”masquerade”.



The facts presented in this post are a gift from the poster to the postee, and probably don’t represent the views of the
management of the Cellar… or anyone else.