The animal world is full of those who can camouflage to fool even the sharpest predators, though there are also those that just cannot merge with the environment and stand out like a sore thumb. Some animals have even begun to manipulate their voice for more impact
A mongoose walks right past a pair of lapwing chicks sitting on the ground, a full-grown tiger disappears into the vegetation, a sleeping nightjar blends in with the branch it was sitting on camouflage. If you want to get technical, ‘Crypsis’ is the ability of an animal to blend into its environment and avoid being seen. Through colour, patterns and even shape, animals are using any device they can to either eat or avoid being eaten. Camouflage is an amazing and extremely effective tool with only one weakness, to keep the illusion the ‘camouflager’ needs to remain very still, a badly-timed yawn or even a little flick of the ear or a tail can reveal the deception and almost like magic the optical illusion breaks.
Some animals, though, have distinctive patterns, like zebras which don’t seem to have the best camouflage and seem to stick out rather than blend in. The beauty of their design kicks in when they are in a herd, a moving mass of black and white stripes makes it much harder for a predator to pick out a single individual as long as they stick together. Another form of self preservation is called ‘Aposematism’ or warning colouration, not really camouflage but rather the opposite. Bright colours and patterns warn predators: “Eat me and die!” or at least get really sick.
Many tree frogs are toxic and with bright and stark combinations of yellow, red and black display the message clearly. The caterpillar of the monarch butterfly are also brightly coloured but are not naturally toxic. They feed only on milkweed, a toxic plant that contains cardiac glycoside which makes them foul tasting as well as poisonous to many birds. So powerful is the toxin that natives of South America and Africa have traditionally used glycoside tipped arrows to hunt and bring down large animals.
However the most intriguing and often jaw-dropping capabilities are reserved for the ‘mimics’. Many animals, insects and even plants which somehow didn’t develop their own natural defences have interestingly adopted another’s appearance and reputation with it.
Mimicry in nature is divided into a few types including Batesian and Mullerian mimicry, Aggressive mimicry and Automicry to name a few. Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace had roamed the Amazon forest in the 1800s and extensively studied butterflies. Bates had noticed that the bright wing patterns of certain species of butterflies closely resembled those of other butterflies that were toxic and unpalatable to predators.
The Batesian mimics ‘modelled’ themselves on species which predators had learned to avoid because they were toxic, tasted bad or sometimes were a stronger predator. There can’t be a better example than the mimic octopus which was only discovered in the 1990s off the coast of Indonesia. The mimic octopus is found only in the estuarine bays of Indonesia and Malaysia. It is full of potential prey and like other octopuses is on the prey list for sharks and barracudas. The mimic octopus has the ability to mimic a range of creatures from lionfish, banded sea snakes, anemones, venomous sole, jellyfish to escape being eaten and can even take the shape of a crab when it is looking for prey itself.
To resemble a banded sea snake it buries itself partially in the sand and extends a couple of legs out and mimics the movement of a banded sea snake exactly. To imitate a sole the octopus pulls its arms in and flattens out its body in the shape of the fish and uses a jet-like propulsion that resembles the movement of the sole. Newly discovered we still don’t know the full limits and the length to which the mimic octopus can go. To truly experience the capabilities and astounding shape shifting of the mimic octopus you need to get onto YouTube and see it for yourself.
Mullerian mimicry was proposed by Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller, who had also spent years in the Brazilian rainforest studying butterflies. He noticed that species that looked similar to each other and had their own predatory defences still mimicked each other to improve their chances of survival. To explain why a butterfly that was already off the menu for predators would want to mimic another nasty tasting butterfly, Müller used simple algebra. He showed that with a larger number of unpalatable butterflies the learning curve of predators would be faster and they would begin avoiding them sooner and with possibly fewer casualties to their species.
Even plants have evolved into sophisticated mimics to further their own species and use the oldest lures in nature — food and sex. Some species of orchids have colours and patterns that mimic the appearance of female bees. Attracted to the flowers, with the promise of a potential mate, the male bees attempt to unsuccessfully copulate with it but successfully pollinating as they go about their carnal activity. Some flowers will even go as far as releasing pheromones which sell the decoy of a ready and waiting female bee even further.
The lyrebird, found in Australia, is a fantastic mimic and during its breeding season, can be heard singing for up to four hours a day. The song of the lyrebird is a mixture of seven elements of its own song and an unlimited number of mimicked sounds it has learnt. Unmatched in their ability to mimic sound, the lyrebird is also another video that needs to be seen to be believed. From mimicking a single bird from a different species to a Koala bear, lyrebirds can mimic artificial sounds as well like chain saws, cars, horns, the shutter of a camera, barking dogs, car alarms and reportedly even the human voice.
A recent discovery has revealed that even a member of the cat family is using mimicry to draw in its prey. The Margay, a neotropical and arboreal wildcat with a tail that is as long as 70 per cent of its body length is found between Mexico and Argentina. The hunting strategy of the Margay is to mimic the sound of a baby pied tamarin, a small monkey. On spotting a group of tamarins, the cat, instead of stalking, mimics the sound of an infant calling out, confusing the group and drawing them into better position for an attack. As incredible as this may seem, there have even been reports of house cats purring when asking for food in the same frequency range as a crying baby. Is this intentional or learnt behaviour where certain frequencies of purrs which were not irritating to humans, got a resultIJ While this might be a theory for now, it might not be too long before the next YouTube video of a talking cat appears.
(The writer is a wildlife film-maker)