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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
>> One thing I haven't figured out is why poisonous prey animals (frogs,
>> butterflies, etc) wind up being brightly colored.
>
> AFAIK the bright colors work as a warning signal. Predators learn to
> distinguish the poisonous prey by their color.
This clearly works poorly if the prey is so poisonous they kill the predator
with one meal.
> It would make little sense to just have poison but otherwise look edible.
> Both predator and prey get killed. With a warning color both live.
So which evolved first? At some point, you're poisonous enough to make the
predator sick, but bright enough to be easily found? I understand the
hand-waving explanation. It's the details I don't really follow.
> (By this logic it would follow that some species mimic the color of
> poisonous species. I wonder if there are examples of this.)
Yes, quite a few. Both monarch butterflies (and their immitators) and that
kind of snake with the red/black/yellow stripes whose name I forget springs
to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry
Oh, there's the snake. GIYF. Can you tell which is poisonous and which
isn't? Notice the different order of the stripes.
http://www.pestproducts.com/images/coral.jpg
http://www.pestproducts.com/images/sckng.jpg
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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