Amazing Larvae

[Mark Tutton]

Came across this amazing moth larvae on Twitter that mimics a tree snake as a defensive strategy.
The south American Hemeroplanes is a member of Sphingidae and is capable of expanding its anterior body segments to give it the appearance of a snake, complete with eye patches. This snake mimicry extends even to the point where it will harmlessly strike at potential predators!
https://t.co/PjQcgv0BcL
The wonder of natural selection at its extreme
Mark

[Jack Harrison]

Utterly amazing. But the adult moth isn't all that unusual:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hemer ... us_sjh.JPG

Jack

[Padfield]

Truly remarkable. How many trillions upon trillions of prototypes must have been gobbled up by predators to fine tune this to such an amazing degree!

Guy

[Tony Moore]

Unless the Creationists are right....

Tony M.

[Charles Nicol]

utterly amazing. there must some further layer of action to produce these amazing mimicries, not just random mutations being selected by reproductive success.

[David M]

That's almost supernatural!

[Nigel P]

I can only repeat what's already been said. Amazing!!

Thanks for posting this.
N

[Padfield]

Our own elephant hawk moth shows the same basic pattern: http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=4183. It has the eyes, the swollen 'head' and the reptilian skin.

Presumably, the prevalence of deadly, venomous snakes in the jungles of Peru makes resembling one a paricularly powerful deterrent, increasing selection pressure towards this design.

Guy

[Matsukaze]

I remember you posting a video of a Glanville Fritillary larva apparently lashing out like a tiny snake, the effect emphasised by the red eyes on the caterpillar resembling those of an adder (if only very vaguely).

[Alastair Rae]

I saw this video of a Hemeroplanes caterpillar from Peru and wanted to share it. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEDmXT ... e=youtu.be

[Padfield]

Thanks Alistair - it's an amazing video.

Mimicry in nature, mimicry (accidental) on the forums - quite coincidentally, Mark Tutton posted the same thing a couple of weeks back :

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8095

Guy

[Charles Nicol]

that was an amazing video !

i was wondering whether humans are mimicking anything ?

[Jack Harrison]

Charles:

...was wondering whether humans are mimicking anything ?

Well I certainly had some managers who seemed to quite good at mimicking a different species of primate

Jack


EDIT from Vince Massimo (20-12-2014)
I have now taken the liberty of merging these two topics together because they relate to the same thing
Vince