VMartin
Posts: 525 Joined: Nov. 2006
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Quote (Erasmus @ FCD,Oct. 07 2007,10:03) | Martin
go here for someone who has reviewed the cases of spiders that are ant mimics. If you are at the public library computer you may be able to download it, but if you are sitting under the bushes in your neighbors backyard pirating bandwith from their wireless you may not get JSTOR.
but simply put there is a shitpile of evidence for morphological and behavioral mimicry adaptations.
and you still never said WHAT YOUR OPINION IS about how mimicry arises. Dishonest asshole. |
Erasmus, are you sleeping or what? You have called me "an idiot" and "asshole", do you remember cretine? I have read your article. Let's discuss it. It is not necessary to have access to JSTOR cretine, everybody could read it here:
http://www.fcla.edu/FlaEnt/fe80p165.pdf
So according the article spiders are mimicking ants only when there are no predators present. It is very weird, isn't it?
Quote | Ants, when disturbed, tend to respond aggressively to the threat, whereas spiders tend to dodge the threat, hiding beneath a leaf or in a crevice, or dropping on a drag line. It has been noted that spider myrmecomorphs, which are also behavioral mimics, abandon their ant-like gait when disturbed (Emerton 1911, Marson 1947, Fowler 1984, Brignoli 1984). This sudden, unexpected change in the behavior of the spider would most likely facilitate its escape from an ant predator.
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I would say if they didn't use an ant-like gait at all it would give them even more protection, he?
This sentence is also very interesting:
Quote | However, myrmecophiles may not mimic their hosts in any way and may simply be tolerated by their otherwise aggressive hosts because they are either neutral in odor or are below some critical size to be recognized by the hosts as intruders (Cushing 1995a).
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So, there is no reason to mimic ants to be tolerated by ants in their colonies? Why the "mimicry"?
The fig.1 is also interesting. What species of ants are those spiders mimicking?
Quote | In many cases, the extent to which the mimics resemble a particular model is extraordinary (see Fig. 1).
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Maybe. But what models has the author on her mind? You know, I would like to see them.
-------------- I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin
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