Being a bright snake: Testing aposematism and mimicry in a neotropical forest

Abstract

Some species have evolved conspicuous coloration that acts as a warning signal to predators. This defense mechanism is known as aposematism (Poulton, 1890). Because predators avoid attacking aposematic organisms, other palatable or harmless species are sometimes observed to mimic aposematic noxious organisms. This tactic is called Batesian mimicry (Bates, 1862). Additionally, some warning signals of different aposematic noxious species converge (Müller, 1879), which is classified as Müllerian mimicry. Müllerian mimics benefit from sharing the same (or similar) warning signal because they share the "cost" of educating predators to avoid the signal (Huheey, 1961; Wickler, 1968). These are only two mimicry categories among many others that have been proposed according to the noxiousness of both models and mimics (Balogh, Gamberale

Frequency-dependent Batesian mimicry maintains colour polymorphism in a sea snake population

“…Although Batesian mimicry likely is widespread, most examples of this phenomenon in reptiles involve species-level resemblances between harmless mimics and toxic models, as in the coral-snake system in South America 7 , 8 and the viper-colubrid system in Europe 9 , 10 . In contrast, studies of intraspecific colour polymorphism in reptiles mostly have focused on sex-specific morphs in lizards, maintained by asymmetric advantages in intrasexual combat among males (e.g., “rock-paper-scissors” dynamics 11 ) or by sex-based differences in microhabitat use that affect the link between colour patterns and fitness 12 .…”

Is the Northern Spectacled Salamander Salamandrina perspicillata aposematic? A preliminary test with clay models

“…In any case, predations trials using motionless animal replicas have several shortcomings and should be always interpreted with caution (Bateman et al, 2017;Rössler et al, 2018;Costa et al, 2020). Actually, studies using clay modes in well-established prey-predator systems, as in the Amazonian poisonous frog Adelphobates galactonotus (Rojas et al, 2015) and the Brazilian venomous coral snake Micrurus corallinus (Banci et al, 2020), were not able to validate the aposematic function of bright and conspicuous colourations. In fact, many predators use prey movements to search, spot and select their preferred prey items (Paluh et al, 2014).…”

The South American false coral snake Erythrolamprus aesculapii (Serpentes: Dipsadidae) as a possible mimic of Micrurus averyi (Serpentes: Elapidae) in Central Amazonia

“…This is because the proportions of red and black (long red rings, in this case) may be more important than the arrangement of the rings as a sign to identify the highly poisonous model Pfennig 2010, França et al 2017). Experimental studies using plasticine models (e.g., Brodie III 1993, Hinman et al 1997, Kikuchi and Pfennig 2010, França et al 2017, Banci et al 2020) would be a useful tool to test such assumptions.…”