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Junior Member (Idle past 6128 days) Posts: 2 From: Alabama, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Mimicry: Please help me understand how | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I think I missed a chapter in your explanation. A man doesn't know the answer to a question about caterpillars 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 butterflies. Therefore they suffered from the medical condition of sclerosis?
Do you see how I might think there is something missing from what you have written regarding your reasoning?
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
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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sinequanon Member (Idle past 2890 days) Posts: 331 Joined: |
You've forgotten to mention the great integrity of the individuals involved, or one could be led to suspect impropriety.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
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. Well, I don't see that there is much difference only you have specified colouration and generalized 'insects' instead of caterpillars/butterflies. That's fine, but you clipped the end off about how this is diagnostic of a medical condition which was apparently your point and you once again neglected to give further details about how you arrived at this conclusion as I requested. So, with a little bit more explanation...could you tell me what your point is?
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
quote: 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.
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
There are lots of non-noxious wasps for a start.
I've made a little googling and have found this:
quote: But obviously it can sting. SP122/IN021: Wasps and Bees A guy made a photo of black wasp and asked about it. The answer:
quote: 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.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
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. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't - I suppose we could test that hypothesis. Either way, what is your point? If it would serve as an advantage, and it is possible to get to it without taking a reduction of overall fitness - then we might see it if it were to occur. If an appropriate mutation doesn't occur, or if getting there requires some kind of temporary sacrifice of fitness - we probably won't see it happening. We could point to a thousand examples of poor design - not just wasps that don't advertise their own noxiousness, we can start with the human body. However, stupid design and the reasons why we see so much of it are not the topic. We're meant to be talking about mimicry. I've said it over and over again. Aposematicism isn't inevitable - evolution doesn't predict that all noxious animals must develop it, it is an event that can be explained if it does occur.
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
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-R calls 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:
quote:
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Nice 30 year old article. I wonder how you might explain
quote: this strange pattern. Read more here. Sounds like a little more than pseudomimicry to me.
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
Yes. I am glad that the phenomenon has been fully explained by this experiment. In my article there is written:
quote: Gehlbach must have been wrong. It is not important what is the number of living individuals, what counts is plasteline models.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I'm not following you.
How do you explain the pattern of attacks without reference to mimicry?
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
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?
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
There must have been a difference between attacks on real snakes in reality and their plasteline models in experiments. Still not following Martin - how would that explain the correlation between birds attacking plasticine mimics of noxious species and frequency of noxious species in that environment? You've told me what evidence you believe exists, what's your hypothesis that would explain the correlation detected in this study?
And how do you explain the aposematic coloration only on ventral side of some snake species? The topic is mimicry, not aposematicism. Feel free to start a new topic.
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MartinV  Suspended Member (Idle past 5854 days) Posts: 502 From: Slovakia, Bratislava Joined: |
Still not following Martin - how would that explain the correlation between birds attacking plasticine mimics of noxious species and frequency of noxious species in that environment? You've told me what evidence you believe exists, what's your hypothesis that would explain the correlation detected in this study?
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 attackingthem 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.
The topic is mimicry, not aposematicism. Feel free to start a new topic
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).
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
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. Of course. But does their similarity lead to the protection of the tasty snake in areas with noxious snakes?
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? Maybe, maybe not. There is certainly a selective advantage for some of these snakes to keep looking the way they do, that's for sure. If the two species are closely related, they may have merely inherited their striking appearance, and the fact that one is noxious allows the other to not be noxious but still be afforded some protection.
We are discussing coral snakes mimicry. This example is related closely with it. It's called topic drift. The OP was talking about mimicry of insects to their background or inert things...camouflage essentially, we drifted to discussing bees and wasps and their mimics, then you moved us over to snake mimicry and snake aposematicism. The function of a certain species' appearance is not really of interest to me in this topic, not unless it has a mimic.
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