Some days ago I saw a little Mischocyttarus paper wasp strangely landing on soil. Then I saw it just had caught a spider. So I kept watching where was she going with that spider, expecting her to carry it to a paper nest, without even knowing if paper wasps eat spiders. She then carried the spider to a little ‘‘den’’ dug in the sand. Then I realized I’ve just been tricked: this was no ‘‘Mischocyttarus’’, not even a paper wasp at all but a perfect mimic, and I simply ended having no idea of what I observed.
Several spider wasps have similar coloration. I’m sure @susanna_h can help if you tag her.
Spider wasps=Trypoxylon?
I’ve been doing annotations of moths and have found some amazing examples. I’m going to start with the fruit-piercing moths today and make more posts with other examples later.
Some species have shading on their wings that make them look 3D. It looks like a leaf with the edges curled in
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/295620729
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15182749
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/62108332
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/219475933
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/74356210
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/306418750
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/276446503
Others in this genus have the shape of a non-curled leaf with an obvious mid-vein
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/180090842
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86954799
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/199278985
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31171261
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/191270630
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102765252
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/264462911
Showing off the underwings can reveal a scary face
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/29557765
The caterpillars can also have big eyespots that look almost cartoonish and display a posture that makes a larger false face to go with the eyes. Sometimes the rest of the caterpillar is mottled green or brown to blend in with vegetation, but other ones are black with bright yellow and/or red markings.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94185149
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/260517916
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/343838818
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/340296007
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143323015
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/76123599
African spider which mimics a thorn (2nd photo):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/298419469
A couple of observations I made in Canada, which show how ant-mimicking jumping spiders move like ants:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/12995267
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7693240
You can see that some jumping spiders convergently became ant mimics because one group waves their first pair of legs and another waves their second pair of legs.
I’ve grown really fond of mockingbirds. I like the way they sound in general, but sometimes I like to use them like a pop quiz. I can often tell exactly what bird they’re mimicking and when, and I find that quite fun!
Me too! Also with catbirds and brown thrashers. A few days ago I heard my local catbird imitate a ruby-throated hummingbird.
I got curious about this post from four years ago. It takes you down a rabbithole of smell (scent) in animal camouflage/mimicry. It turns out that:
- Some snakes (not just Puff Adders) have heavy molecules on their skin, and then the snake doesn’t move, so almost no skin molecules are wafted into the air. This obviously doesn’t help against predators that hunt by sight, but it does help against predators (and prey) that use scent to detect things.
- Some insects chemically match the smell of the plant that they’re on
- We know many insects that live inside the nests of other insects, that match their smell
Humans can only sense a tiny fraction of what is out there, in terms of sight (missing infrared, UV, etc), missing a lot of smell, and missing sound (infrasound and ultrasound). This smell question is a neat reminder that there are entire evolutionary arms races happening all the time, that we’re mostly oblivious to!
Amazon leaffish, Monocirrhus polyacanthus. They are voracious predators which physically and behaviorally mimic a dead leaf drifting slowly with the current.
With your mystery moth larva, have a look at Tribe Lithosiini Lichen Moths
Female moths emit pheromones to attract males of their specific species. The males use their feathery antennae to detect the pheromones from up to a kilometre away.
Bolas spiders specialize in hunting male moths (though they will happily attack any flying insect which comes close), luring them in by emitting fake female moth pheromones. The moths emit a blend of multiple chemicals; some bolas spiders emit single chemicals used by multiple species, others closely imitate a single species, and some change the blend they emit to attract different species depending on the time of night or the time of year.
Bolas spiders are also visual mimics to avoid predation during the day; most of the North American ones imitate bird droppings, elsewhere a few look like berries, snails, or leaf buds.
There are some interesting katydids that mimic pompilid wasps.
Females of the Photuris firefly genus mimic the flash patterns of the males of other firefly species to lure them in as prey.
This threat caused another firefly species (Ellychnia corrusca, the winter firefly), to eliminate their lights completely and resort to daylight mate searching in the very early spring, to bypass the predation.
I remember hearing about those in a David Attenborough special (‘Light on Earth’ or something like that, I think it was called). Poor little guys can’t catch a break. The only female that pays him any attention, and she just wants to eat him. 