mimicry The importance of the signal receiverbiology

Fundamental characteristics of mimicry are determined mainly by behavioral properties of the signal receiver. A precise knowledge of the identity of the receiver and a thorough study of its behaviour are therefore indispensable for the understanding of mimicry. Moreover, mimicry gradually merges into other sender–receiver systems. Palatability is a matter of degree; whole ranges of distastefulness therefore exist, even in the mimics, model and mimic in the case of Müllerian mimicry being equally unpalatable and sharing the same warning coloration. Müllerian mimicry could be considered not to be true mimicry, after all, because no one is deceived, and it is impossible to designate one as model and the other as mimic.

Although all individuals of a given wasp species look alike and are all equally protected, this phenomenon is not usually called Müllerian mimicry, simply because the signals were not independently evolved, a property known as convergence. Because, however, the male wasps have no protective properties but retain their group-specific warning coloration, this is Batesian mimicry, although model and mimic are of the same species and their signals homologous (evolved from the same source). Convergence (or independent evolution) of the signal characters, therefore, is essential only for the so-called Müllerian mimicry, and thus Müllerian mimicry is distinguished from other cases of signal standardization. The typical (Batesian) mimicry merges into Müllerian mimicry if the difference between the consequences for the receiver of reacting similarly to model and mimic diminishes; and by homology of the signal characters it further merges into general signal standardization.

An insect may be protectively coloured to resemble, for example, a wasp or a twig. In the first case the coloration is called mimicry, in the second, mimesis, or protective coloration. The difference lies within the signal receiver. If the mimetic signal does not release any reaction in the receiver, the mimic is said to exhibit mimesis. This distinction is illustrated by the experiments of the Dutch biologist L. de Ruiter with stick caterpillars, which, by virtue of their close resemblance to twigs, are protected against insect-eating birds. As soon as the number of “twigs” becomes too large, however, the bird develops an interest in them, attacks some real twigs, and also finds some caterpillars. If one positive experience with the caterpillar has the same weight as a negative one with the twig (the signal remaining unchanged), the relative abundance of caterpillars and twigs determines whether all twigs are mistakenly exterminated or whether the feeding reaction toward twiglike objects disappears, thus protecting the caterpillars.

This study again illustrates the importance of the bird’s ability to decide correctly which is the model and further shows how easily an object (the twig) may quite involuntarily become a “mimic.” Another example illustrating the importance of a correct model is found in the common farming relationship between ants and aphids. The protuberances, called the siphones and cauda, on the abdomens of aphids resemble respectively the bases of the antennae and labium of the ant’s head. The aphid’s abdomen is thus mistaken by the ant for the head of a fellow ant, thereby eliciting the food-begging response, which is identical with milking. Saturated ants in turn even try to feed the abdomens of the aphids. Aphid species with reduced abdominal siphones use their hind legs as antennae dummies, the movements elicited being originally defensive movements. This situation is exactly the way in which mimicry arises. Mimetic characters need not have evolved under the selection pressure of mimicking; in fact, their earliest evolutionary stages could not even have been brought about in this way. All cases studied thus far can be traced back to an incipient stage of deceptive resemblance, initiated as a preadaptive, nondirected by-product of pre-existing species-specific features, thus providing a point of attack for new selective pressure.