This post is the first in a six post series outlining the evolution of mimicry within the ocean realm. These posts detail various ways in which organisms may copy other organisms in appearance and behavior, and the evolutionary context for how these mimic-model pairings have come to be.
In the human world, being a “poser” can have serious repercussions.
Well, at least if you are found out by those around you. No one appreciates a fake. A phony. A liar. A disingenuous, duplicitous slimeball. Someone who is, as a notably troglodytic hobbit habitually says, “false.” Someone who appears to portray themselves as something they are not tends to raise the hackles of anyone in their immediate social circle. Sometimes, the issue is a complete breakdown of trust, and an inability for anyone to take your word or feelings seriously. You become an actor. A poor one, one that nobody believes. Sometimes, the transparency of your guise just becomes annoying and exasperating. Like if you saw Little Dragon do a set “at Sasquatch one year” and that was the only time you ever saw them perform, before or since, but now all you do is talk to your friend about how much of a “huge fan” you’ve always been, even though I…I mean your friend…was listening to Machine Dreams back when you were still listening to Jason fucking Mraz like an uncultured jackoff….even though you didn’t know about their collab with Gorillaz, and when asked where they were based, you shat out something about “New York mostly I think.” IT’S GOTHENBURG, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. STOP ACTING LIKE YOU KNOW THINGS, JEFF, BECAUSE YOU DON’T.
….anyways, posers can rub people the wrong way.
But in much of the natural world, faking your way through life may be a great strategy to keep alive and produce lots of offspring. Any trait that gives you in edge in getting food, not becoming food, and making sure you can make lots of babies (which also can get food and not become food) is likely to proliferate in the population. Sometimes, this means using deceit, and looking and behaving like something you are not. When a species resembles another in behavior or appearance (or any other sense), this is known as “mimicry.” The organism that a mimic is imitating is referred to as a “model”, and importantly, mimicry only really works for the mimic if the model is found in the same area. Evolutionary biology is rife with examples, many of which are found in terrestrial ecosystems, and often involve insects…because, partially, there are likely millions of insect species on the planet from which instances of mimicry can evolve. There are swaths of moths that have evolved to resemble wasps, and the moths benefit by fooling predators into thinking they can deliver a painful, venomous sting. European bee orchids have flowers that look very much like the solitary bee Eucera, successfully attracting horny male bees, which then find themselves inadvertently dry-humping a cruel, floral-scented bee blow-up doll, all the while unknowingly satisfying the pollen transportation needs of the orchid. The chicks of the Amazonian cinereous mourner (Laniocera hypopyrra) appear to mimic a fuzzy, rust-colored variety of noxious caterpillar, which helps them not get harassed by hungry wildlife, but at the cost of looking like something that would scamper off the scalp of a particularly controversial 2016 Presidential candidate that shall not be named. These are just a fraction of the examples. In the history of life on Earth, mimicry has evolved over and over again, because, quite simply, it can really pay to pretend to be something you’re not.
