Download Slide 1

Anti predator behaviors: Adaptive behaviors that:
•Are typically specialized to the details of predator prey interaction
•Can be associated with special physiological changes
•Typically based on ecological constraints
Evolutionary principles:
•Adaptation: a trait that infers (or at one time inferred) an advantage
•Convergent evolution: The independent evolution of a common solution
•Divergent evolution: Unique evolutionary solutions
Mobbing behavior: does it take a mob to mob?
The purpose of mobbing behavior is to disrupt predatory action.
Mocking bird mobbing red-tailed hawk
Fairy terns mobbing Black kite
Mobbing behavior: does it take a mob to mob?
Eurasian marsh harriers
prey on carrion crows
Carrion crows will individually
mob eurasian marsh harrier
Other parental behaviors that disrupt predatory action.
Ptarmigans, like many birds will fain injuries and lead predators away from the nest
The evolution of mobbing behavior
Could mobbing behavior have evolved:
•before gulls split from other bird taxa?
•as a non social parental defense trait that emerges as a mob
act under conditions of expression in flocking species?
Does mobbing behavior provide an advantage?
Cryptic behavior: If you can’t see it you can’t eat it
The evolution of specialized structural adaptations still requires
adaptive behavior to pull off the illusion
moths resembles a dead leafs on the forest
simulated leaf veins running through wingtips
Moths also must be selective of where they
hide and how they orient.
The evolution of specialized structural adaptations still requires
adaptive behavior to pull off the illusion
The motionless twig caterpillar shown here (courtesy of
Muriel V. Williams) complete with "buds" and "lenticels"
escapes detection by birds.
In the lowland rain forest of the Peruvian Amazon, "bird
dropping caterpillar.”
The evolution of specialized structural adaptations still requires
adaptive behavior to pull off the illusion
Cryptic mimicry in the katydid
Cryptic coloration and behaviors in amphibians/reptilians
How Many animals in these pictures?
Cryptic coloration and behaviors in Fishes
Advertising bad food quality: Bright colors elaborate decor
•The caterpillar of an Io moth has sharp
and toxic urticating spines. The spines
are called
•Such honest signaling is an alternative
to mimicry.
The Io moth as an adult reverts to eyespots on its
hind wings, which it displays when threatened.
Come on: I dare you!
Golden poison frog
Phantasmal poison frog
Yellow-banded Poison Frog
Blue poison frog
Red spotted arrow frog
Dyeing poison frog
Batesian Mimicry in insects: False advertising
Real species
fakes
Batesian mimicry: Cryptic imposters
This edible insect nymph assumes the fraudulent
guise of a stinging ant in both appearance and
behavior.
Batesian mimicry in moth larvae
Camouflage:
Decorator crabs place
chemically defended
seaweeds on their backs,
attaching them via hooked
setae on their carapace.
This strategy works to reduce
predation because this
seaweed is distasteful to
omnivorous consumers that
eat both seaweeds and small
invertebrates like crabs
But don’t eat it
Like to wear it
Camo: its not just for prey!
Camo: its not just for prey!
•A scorpionfish lies immobile on a coral reef.
•Its crypsis serves to keep it hidden from prey.
mimicry: its not just for prey either!
Mimicry in predators
Some carnivores have evolved devices with which they mimic prey (or potential mate)
of other (usually smaller) predators. They use these devices as lures.
The angler fish (Antennarius) displays a lure resembling a small fish. The lure is
a development of the spine of the first dorsal fin. This species of anglerfish,
which was found in the Philippines, is 9.5 cm long. Note its use of camouflage:
its texture (and color) closely resemble the sponge- and algae-encrusted rocks
found in its habitat.