Mimicry Caterpillar: I Can Imitate Your Face and Also Your Movements
In nature, every living being has its own survival rule, mimicry is one of the common methods.
Mimicry, in simple terms, is a way for a creature to imitate the appearance of other creatures or objects in order to deceive predators, such as the leaf-tailed gecko, which is a master of the mimicry world.
Today, let's introduce a more excellent mimicry creature than the leaf-tailed gecko, the Hemerocromis caterpillar. This tiny creature disguises itself as a venomous snake.
The Hemerocromis caterpillar is a type of caterpillar in the butterfly family, found in many places in South America, Africa, and Central America.
During a chance encounter, scientists took a photo of this amazing creature. At first glance, a venomous feature snake lurks among the leaves, but upon closer inspection, you'll find that this 'snake' is unusually short in length.
As we all know, caterpillars are soft-bodied and have no good defense system, and their protein content is high, so caterpillars are a favorite food for many animals. Therefore, to ward off predators, caterpillars choose to disguise themselves as venomous snakes.
Perfect replication: I not only imitate your face, but also your eyes and luster.
When disturbed, this larva unfolds the first part of its body in front, like a snake's head with black eyes, even producing a reptile-like scale effect.
The caterpillar's transformation is not an easy thing, because the 'snake face' is located on its abdomen.
First, the caterpillar must flip its body backward, twist its body, and expose its abdomen, revealing a snake-like color,
Secondly, after the posture is in place, the caterpillar uses small holes on the side of its body (called spiracles) to inhale air, pumping air into its body, the body expands, and the shape changes, forming a snake 'face' at the top. The 'eyes' on the 'face' also slowly open.
How does the snake's eye imitation work?
It can be said that the Hemerocromis caterpillar was born to copy snakes, because it was born with 'eye spots',
Many animals have obvious eye-like spots, and in most animals, these 'eye spots' are considered to scare away predators, making them unwilling to attack, or to deviate from their fragile bodies during predation.
This 'eye spot' can help the prey imitate the eyes of the predator, this survival strategy is particularly effective for butterflies and caterpillars.
Generally, caterpillars with eye spots are naturally used to imitate snakes. When birds attack, they are often mistaken for dangerous snakes and abandon the attack.
Finally
In order to quickly scare away predators, this harmless caterpillar not only imitates the snake's face, but also imitates the snake's movements.
It will move its body and make an attacking snake posture. Other species of caterpillars even make noises through spiracles to scare away predators.
In general, there is no creativity in surviving in the natural world.
