Harmless hoverflies take on the appearance of dangerous or toxic insects in a clever and highly effective subterfuge to keep predators away, discovers Ian Morton
MiMiCry in Nature has been well documented, with categories bearing the names of the men who classified them. Browerian involves the same species: some caterpillars of the monarch butterfly eat a toxic variety of milkweed and themselves become toxic, so deterring predators from taking others from non-toxic plants. Mullerian involves two species imitating their warning characteristics to mutual advantage, as practiced by some ladybirds.
The big one is Batesian, defensive mimicry, whereby vulnerable species take on the appearance of others that predators know to be dangerous.
Henry Walter Bates (1825–92), one of those redoubtable Victorians who explored the secrets of regions unknown before the 19th century, spent 15 years documenting insects in the Amazon, determining, among other things, that some butterflies adopted the appearance of unrelated species for their own protection. He delivered his theory to the Linnean Society in London in 1861 and published a paper that established his name and legacy. He deserves to be better remembered.
Our greatest exponent of Batesian mimicry is the hoverfly. Not popular among the buzzing hordes, the hoverfly is, nevertheless, numerous species, with 276 classified in Britain. They’re arguably the most colorful and varied tribe to take to the air—even more so than butterflies (56 members), ladybirds (46), dragonflies (30) and damselflies (16), all of which flaunt their identities. in the matter of numbers, moths have it with about 2,400 species, but most are crepuscular and dowdy and some employ auditory Batesian mimicry by uttering ultrasonic squeaks to persuade bats that they are of an unpalatable kind.
With not a sting or a bite between them, hoverflies pretend to be honeybees, bumblebees, blowflies or wasps as they work wildflowers and borders or invade greenhouses (in America, they are known as flower flies).
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