Thursday, May 27, 2010

Mimicry!!!

This is the Viceroy Butterfly. This butterfly looks a lot like the Monarch butterfly. BUT, there is a difference. Look at the two pictures, the Viceroy has a stripe on his back wings. The Monarch does not. The Viceroy does this to protect itself from predators. He uses mimicry to trick birds into thinking he's a Monarch which is poisonous to them. This is a cool trick!

This is the Monarch butterfly. See NO STRIPE!


Another good mimic is this Scarlet King Snake. The truly poisonous snake is the Coral snake.
He tricks his enemies into thinking that he is poisonous.


This is the real poisonous snake. The Coral Snake.
Here's an easy way to remember which is poisonous and which is NOT:
" Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black won't hurt Jack."
THE END...




5 comments:

Marlene said...

I'll never confuse the two!!

Melissa (Melgurl) said...

Cool I love to learn about the mock animals their so tricky.

Unknown said...

We learned about these before but I think I'll be safe as long as I don't eat any butterflies and stay away from banded snakes.

Jo Ann said...

Butterflies are delicious with fava beans and chianti. But I do avoid the viceroys.

Angel said...

I liked your explanation! Very imformative.