Mimicry: Please help me understand how

Again, a glance at the real world is rewarding. Predators which have a sense of taste or smell are repulsed by the pyrazine, and learn to associate this with visual cues. See, for example, Skelhorn J. & Rowe C., Prey palatability influences predator learning and memory.

This is your idea of evidence? Hedgehogs, BIG hedgehogs, weigh less that 1kg. So, 1/7th of a gram of cantharidin is enough to off 100% of the hedgehogs that injest it.However, since we've learned above that you don't believe that DEATH is a significant factor in preventing mating and reproduction, I suppose that this isn't really going to sway you.Watch out everyone, Martin leads an army of undead hedgehogs on a insect killing spree! Run for your lives!

Well, golly gosh, it's almost as though natural selection favors resistance to insect toxins more in insectivores than in non-insectivores.I wonder if you can figure out why. It's a fact. Even "naive" handreared animals will avoid animals with aposematic coloration by instinct. See, for example, Smith S., Innate Recognition of Coral Snake Pattern by a Possible Avian Predator, Science, February 1975.Once it was a Darwinian presupposition. Then it was proved right. Are you beginning to notice a pattern here? Y'know, like how the facts always turn out to fit the theory perfectly in every detail?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I don't see your point. 1 gram of Cantharidin kill 7 kg of hedgehogs or 20.000 kg of people. If hedgehog is 1 kg weighty, then it will kill 7 hedgehogs. If an average man is 70 kg weighty the same 1 gram of Cantharidin will kill almost 300 men.So if we are speaking about a poison we should ask for whom it is poisonous. If the beetle is poisonous or smell badly for us it doesn't implicate that the same reaction or feeling will occur for birds. If darwinists perceive a ladybird as aposematic it doesn't mean the birds are of the same opinion. On the contrary, they feed on ladybirds heavily.And ladybirds also do not observe the rule of advantage of aposematic Mullerian mimicry rings and are variously colored as I gave examples above.

It depends. Heikertinker did not believe in aposematism and poisionos qualities of ladybirds and all those experiments proving it. He made exactly the same experiments himself. He repeated the darwinian experiments with different kind of beetles closed together with ladybirds. The previous experiments proved that many kind of beetles do not survive more than 2 hours with ladybirds under the same glass (beeing poisoned by evaporation of dirty glass or what). Heikeringer observed opposite - ladybirds was readily eaten by many of those beetles (Dytiscus eated ladybirds more than 3 weeks and it died immediately after eating fresh pork meat).All those experiments are described in details in his work the link I have given. There are also described all ladybirds predators. Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

The evolutionary mind has evolved some common set of defence strategies. When a under threat do this or do that.(there is a long list)
A mouse will hide inside his hole. And so do others animals of its kind which live under the ground like rabbits.
Given a small size make it look dead or pretend to be another case of
a natural event like falling seeds or bird falling or leaf falling ..Mimicry is common ot all small species of animals.

No surprise there. Let me make myself clear. 7 hedgehogs do NOT eat 1 ladybird. If the poison is sufficient to kill 1 hedgehog, that's a complete equation. That hedgehog, despite your early contentions, will STOP eatting once it is dead. Further, it will likewise stop reproducing.

So, one man with a crank theory got results which he interpreted as contradicting every single experiment done on aposematism before or since.I wonder if by some whilom chance he was right, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. Which one?

I didn't say the insect contain enough poison to kill a hedgehog. Hedgegogs eat them regularly btw. You maybe drink Whiskey (Brandy or whatever). I suppose it taste you and you like it. But if you drink let say 5 liters at evening it surely will kill you. But it doesn't mean that alcohol is a poison.

Heikertinger Franz, 1932
Die Coccinelliden, ihr "Ekelblut", ihre Warntracht und ihre Feinde (6,28 MB) //Biologischen Zentralblatt, 52 Band, Heft 2, Verlag, Leipzig, P. 65-102.(Concillidae, their "poisonous blood", their warning coloration and their enemies).You can find it here:http://www.zin.ru/animalia/Coleoptera/rus/ukropbib.htmAs you can see it has almost 40 pages.
But be carfull, it has 6,2 MB, it is in German and it takes a time to load it. Heikertinger doesn't spare selectionists there.

As noted before, links are only for support of your own words.Additionally, most of your audience hear will not be able to read it anyway.Please, copy the relevant parts in the original German and supply a translation.Edited by AdminNosy, : correcting author

You are wellcome. Anyway I cannot copy it because it is a photocopy, but see the pages 75-77. The link itself is in my previous post.Heikertinger often ridiculed methods and thinking of scientists who considered hypothesis of "natural selection" as the valid explanation of coloration of insects. He called them often as "Hypothetiker".As to ladybirds he quoted experiments of "Hypothetker" who observed supposedly poisonous qualities of ladybirds.A darwinist Meissner made these observations:Dytiscus circumcintus killed and ate Coccinella septempunctata and after then it died. The beetle was "poisoned".
The robust beetle Spondylis buorestoides had been given into a bottle where small ladybirds Adalia bipunctata were present. The next day the beetle was dead. Many Dipteria and Rhapidia were killed through ladybirds poison. Also grasshoppers did not like the evaporation of the poison (but I don't know if they died).So Heikertinger made some experiments too:
Dytiscus marginalis caught on 14.May was held in a glass.
21.May it obtain 2 living 7-punct. ladybirds. Both of them are dead the next day, the one of them is half-eaten.
24.May the beetle ate the whole ladybird.
27.May it again ate the whole ladybird
4.Juny again...The beetle died 5.Juni 2 hours after eating fresh pork meat. Strangely enough "poisonous" ladybirds did't kill it, but fresh meat...The second experiment:
In an experiment there were held together in a glass 2 Concinella 7-punct., 4 Adalia bipunctata,1 Halyzia 22-punct, 1 Harpalus, 1 Amara, 1 Paederus, 1 Aphodius, 1 Athous, 2 ants, 1 Tipulide, 2 Pyrrhocoris, 1 Thyreorcoris. The glass is hermeticaly closed.After 28 hours Tulipide was motionless. Then there was made a small canal for the fresh air. After 8 days still lived - 1 Coccinella, 4 Adalia, 1 Harpalus, 1 Amara, 1 Paederus, 1 Athous, 1 Thyreocoris...The list of bird enemies of ladybirds I have given already in one of my previous posts. Heikertinger appreciate very the research of content of birds stomachs, because it reflects the reality.I supposed that Dr.Adeuate can read German. At least his haughty bahaviour and his denigrations of me here (which are tolerated) made an impression that Dr.Adequate must be an well-educated person who has no problem to address also material in German. Or am I dealing with a moron who solves all problems after 5 minutes of using Google?

A warning this time. Stop playing childish games.

So what are you trying to say, ladybirds are not poisonous to other insects? What does this have to do with mimicry?I don't know how many times we need to explain this to you, but finding examples of where mimicry has failed to protect a specimen is NOT proof that mimicry does not provide any protection at all.Here's a few statements. Could you please indicate which ones (if any) you don't agree with?

1. Creatures pass on characteristics to their offspring.
   ​
2. Creatures that live longer will have more opportunity to produce offspring.
   ​
3. If creature A is more successful at evading predators than creature B, chances are that creature A will live longer, and will produce more offspring.
   ​
4. If a predator knows (by instinct or experience) that eating creature C will make him sick, he will tend to leave creature C alone.
   ​
5. A predator sees creature A and creature B. He notices the similarity of creature A to creature C, which he knows will make him sick, so he eats creature B instead. Creature A has survived because he resembles creature C.
   ​
6. Creature A's descendants will have a better chance of survival than creature B's descendants, because of their resemblance to creature C.
   ​
7. Mimicry exists only in the minds of evil neodarwinists (trick question!!)

What do you think is a plausible explanation for mimicry, if not evolution and natural selection?

I can. However, I am unwilling to plough through forty pages of scientific prose in German in order to find out if you have a point.So far your point seems to be that insectivores are better adapting to eating insects than to eating pork. What you think this proves, I have no idea.