Mimicry: Please help me understand how

From medical point of view Darwin, Wallace and Bates were perhaps all sclerotics in 1867. Is there any other plausible explanation of their discussion?

Your rendering of the story is nice and almost correct. I like it, just a small improvement:A man doesn't know the answer to a question about conspicuous coloration of insects so he asks a friend who refers him to a third man who gives what he thinks is the answer to the question and the first man tells the second man. The idea aligns with a hypothesis the second man had developed regarding conspicuous coloration of insects.Perfect.

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So, with a little bit more explanation...could you tell me what your point is?

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The whole story sounds funny for me. Maybe we grew up in different cultural tradition and your sense of humour is different - even though I like english humour. That's all.Merry Christmas to you.

I've made a little googling and have found this:

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Mud dauber wasp, Sphecidae ( Plate 5 ). It is a black wasp with a long, thin waist, and is not a social wasp. It is not very aggressive and rarely stings people. However, it often builds its mud nests close to human activity.

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But obviously it can sting.SP122/IN021: Wasps and BeesA guy made a photo of black wasp and asked about it. The answer:

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"Hi Ruben,
I checked with an expert, Eric Eaton, who wrote back:
"The lateral view shows it to be something in the sphecine tribe Larrini. The genera there are a real beast. You have to look at the ocelli (simple eyes) to even have a clue.

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For those wasps having more warning coloration would have given them some advantage, wouldn't it? Predators would better remember more conspicuos wasps and their alleles should spread over populations more readily.

Arnold B. Grobman in his article

An Alternative Solution to the Coral Snake Mimic Problem (Reptilia, Serpentes, Elapidae)
JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?si.....CO;2-Rcalls the whole issue of coral snakes mimicry as pseudomimicry. Next to maps and areas of distribution of "mimics" he presented in the article many other interesting facts that are unexplainable by neodarwinian selection fancies. The author dismissed selection as the source of resemblance between coral snakes and their so called "mimics". Interestig are his examples of snakes that are "aposematic" only on their ventral side and so no predator can be warned/scared by it.For instance ring-neck snake: The author of the article (1978) was inspired by ideas of Reighard (1908) who dismissed the selection as the source of some colorfull fish.A. Grobman concludes:

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With little or no selection pressure through predation, bright colors and bizarre patterns have arisen among a variety of unrelated species of secretive snakes. Among a substantial number of those species, several independently have developed color patterns of gross similarity although differing in detail. Snakes of similar size with grossly similar patterns bear a superficial resemblance to each other. When such resembling species occupy approximately the same
geographic area, the phenomenon might be called pseudomimicry. It is proposed that the superficial morphological resemblances among the coral snake, scarlet snake, and scarlet kingsnake in the southeastern United States comprise an example of pseudomimicry.

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Yes. I am glad that the phenomenon has been fully explained by this experiment. In my article there is written:

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Gehlbach observed that about 16% of the allopatric Sonora specimens are "mimics" of Micrurus and a comparable percentage of sympatric Sonora species are also "mimics." From these data, Gehlbach suggested that no mimetic advantage apparently is associated with color
pattern resemblances.

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Gehlbach must have been wrong. It is not important what is the number of living individuals, what counts is plasteline models.

There must have been a difference between attacks on real snakes in reality and their plasteline models in experiments. And how do you explain the aposematic coloration only on ventral side of some snake species?

Authors picked up two sympatric "mimics" - scarlet kingsnakes and sonoran mountain kingsnakes. Such selection is no way representative sample to explain the whole phenomenon of coral snakes mimicry. Both species are sympatric with their models. According Grobman's table there are 20 non-venomous snakes in USA mimicking coral snakes. Eleven of them are essentially allopatric and only eight are essentially sympatric. Even if the experiment with plasteline models could have some relation to reality it doesn't address to main point: Was it really natural selection that led to such resemblance? Authors mentioned this crucial point with one sentence only: "Many coral snakes and non-venomous kingsnakes possess red, yellow (or white), and black ringed markings, which predators avoid, though often without prior experience.I have no information about predators which survived an encounter with deadly poisonous model, recovered and then avoided attacking
them again. Considering both points - many allopatric mimics and deadly poisonous models I don't see what role natural selection could play in occurence of the mimicry. We are discussing coral snakes mimicry. This example is related closely with it. Also professor Grobman mentioned it in his article as contra argument of natural selection in the case of coral snakes mimicry. It is an opinion of a hepretologist regarding the discussed issue so I don't see reason to discuss it in another thread (taking into consideration what torture it would be before approving my new thread with admins like you).

I don't know if the previous observation that coral snakes are nocturnal and their mimics are diurnal has been completely refuted nowadays. If not there is a problem with their predators. But this is not the main point of refuting mimicry from my part. Preliminary we can conclude that plasteline models are attacked less during the day in the area of sympatry. Heikertinger defined resemblance as mimicry only if selection have led to the resemblance. In case selection was not the force behind it, it is pure coincidence of coloration that might give some survival advantage or not - but it is not real mimicry. So I don't know what is your definition of mimicry. There might probably be some survival advantage of looking like noxious species now. The topic of the thread is mimicry. Mimicry of wasps and mimicry of coral snakes are famous examples. So why don't discuss them in this thread? Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Do you mean unrelated snakes that have the same patterns? Otherwise I don't see your point. It seems to me you have agreed with Heikertinger's definition. When I challenged mimicry regarding dorsal coloration I obviously challenged also the idea that there are "mimics" of coral snakes. Mimics are connected with mimicry on my opinion and there are no mimics without mimicry.But whatever you means by "mimic" I don't have any information of snakes looking like them.

As far as I know neodarwinian school offered only so-called "Mertensian mimicry" as the explanation of the mimicry of deadly poisonous coral snakes. No one bird has been observed to survive after being bitten. So how can any bird learn not to touch coral-like snakes? jstor 1989: Red-Tailed Hawk Dies with Coral Snake in Talons Grobman who called the whole issue as pseudomimicry offered this solution: Sounds like Heikertinger who refuted natural selection as the source of mimicry entirely.As to the so-called neodarwinian mertesian mimicry explanation - or in German "Mertensche mimikry" - Komarek from UNI Prague wrote, that the whole explanation belongs more to the realm of fairy-tales. Mimicry, Aposematism and Related Phenomena in Animals and Plants 1998For those who are interested in an independent view on the whole issue of mimicry and neodarwinism as well, some of Komarek's views can be found here pdf.

I don't know if the situation regarding the discrimination of cuckoos eggs is as simple as presented. There is a theory that other birds could tell apart their own eggs and those of cuckoos. I have read the theory in Flegr's Evolutionary Biology page 333 where he mentioned research of Zahavi and Soler. Sometimes it is very dangerous for host to throw away cuckoos eggs. Natural selection? As far as I know birds do not care for their offsprings after they leave the nest. Am I wrong?

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Now a study in the journal Evolution offers the first evidence to support what had been considered an unlikely explanation for this behavior. Biologists studying magpies and the great spotted cuckoos that dump eggs into their nests say that the magpie hosts are not dupes at all, but have been forced into cooperation by an avian extortion scheme. But maybe I am wrong.

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The researchers say the cuckoos return periodically to check on the nests in which they have left their eggs. If they find their young safely there, all is well. If their eggs are missing, tossed out by uncooperative magpie hosts, the cuckoos destroy the nest, killing the remaining egg or chick inhabitants wholesale.

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Thuggish Cuckoos Use Muscle To Run Egg Protection Racket - The New York Times I wouldn't be so sure.Edited by MartinV, : irony added

We should probably define the difference between crypsis and mimicry. Do you think that some eggs are "mimicking" other eggs?
Do you consider eggs to be alive?Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

So you don't believe in Mafia hypothesis. On the other hand there could be another explanation. Neodarwinists in the case of coral snakes mimicry operate with "innate aversion" of predators towards coral snakes coloration. It cannot be learn during a predator lifespan because no one survive the venomous bite. This case can be interpretted the same way. But it sounds more like some innate "archetype" of "eggs which are mine" even though they are different in shape and coloration. Those species can really experience some "survival advantage". But this mysterious process of "innate aversion or acceptance" goes ahead of natural selection. There is some animal premonition involved I would say.

My latest post at AtBC and RichardDawkins.net (and I hope it is not my last post here - Modulous is also neodarwinian admin here you know):Heikertinger ridiculed "natural selection" as the source of aposematism, mimicry and related phenomena. It occurs too often to be explained by "natural selection". Ladybirds are very conspicuous regarding their coloration. Yet neodarwinian school doesn't have any plausible explanation of it. The same for bugs. Who can exactly tell apart conspicuos coloration - as mimicry or aposematism - of wasps, coral snakes, butterflies, fruiting bodies of mushrooms, bugs, ladybirds and insist on "natural selection" as the only explanation of it? Even the great Darwin solved the problem by these words:
"I could not answer, but should maintain my ground ."1 2 3 4 5 hehe.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.