Mulerian mimicry rings often contain a number of different species exhibiting hte same warningcolours. This increases the chance that a predator may try to predate on one of these individuals. After which it should refrain form attacking anything else displaying such a colour scheme.
Mullerian mimicry is not limited to insects. Below are forgs of the genus Dendrobates, collected by Schute et al. (2001). Frogs A-C are of the species Dendrobates imitator, below which are frogs of different species, displaying the sympatic relationship in variation to geographical location:
© The Royal Society
References:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/396909/Mullerian-mimicry
http://inscets.about.com/od/Insect Defences/f/What-Is-Mullerian-Mimicry.htm
Schulte, R, Summers, K, Symula R 2001, 'Molecular phylogenetic evidence for a mimetic radiation in Peruvianpoison frogs supports a Mullerian mimicry hypothesis', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, Vol. 268, pp. 2415-2421, fig. 1.
Interesting post. The amphibians are a really nice example for demonstrating this type of mimicry. Are there reptile examples of müllerian mimicry?
ReplyDeleteHi Tasmin, yes you can find müllerian mimicry in reptiles although it is quite uncommon. A good example is the highly venomous coral snake and the moderately venomous false coral snake. Interestingly the non-venomous milk snake's also mimic the colour scheme of coral snakes where there distributions overlap but this is Batesian mimicry not müllerian as the milk snake is non-venomous.
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