[WikiEN-l] King snakes, milk snakes and viceroy butterflies: Honesty and deception

[Brock Weller]

Agreed. pretty much a Tolstoy.

On 8/27/07, NavouWiki <navouwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can this be summarized?
>
> Regards,
> Navou
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Armed Blowfish
> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 9:55 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] King snakes, milk snakes and viceroy butterflies:
> Honesty and deception
>
> Deception has a long and distinguished history.  Mimicry and
> camouflage are common in the animal world among predators and prey
> alike - to hide, to pretend to be dangerous, to lure prey into a false
> sense of security, etc.
>
> Batesian mimicry occurs when two or more species are similar in
> appearance, but only one has the trait (e.g. being poisonous) being
> signaled.  Coral snakes have alternating stripes of red, yellow and
> black.  So do king snakes and milk snakes.  However, coral snakes are
> poisonous, but king snakes and milk snakes aren't.  The plain tiger
> butterfly is poisonous, containing alkaloids that make predators
> vomit.  They also fake death when attack, oozing nauseating liquid,
> enabling them to often survive such attacks.  The palatable indian
> frittillary females and danaid eggfly females look much like plain
> tiger butterflies.  Alligator snapping turtles have tongues which look
> like worms; if a fish tries to eat such a tongue, the fish is eaten
> instead.
>
> Muellerian mimicry is the same thing, except that the two species do
> in fact share the trait being signaled.  Monarch butterflies and
> viceroy butterflies look much alike, and both taste bad to predators.
> Poison arrow frogs and Mantella frogs tend to have bright coloured
> spots against a black background, and they are all poisonous.
>
> Self-mimicry is where one body part imitates another.  Prey can use
> this to increase chances of survival if attacked, and predators can
> use it to lure prey into a false sense of security.  Owl butterflies
> have spots on their wings which looks like eyes.  They are more likely
> to survive an attack on their wings than an attack on the main part of
> their body.  Pygmy owls have false eyes in the back of their heads to
> fool predators into thinking they are seen.  The two-headed snake of
> central Africa has a head which looks like a tail and a tail which
> looks like a head, fooling prey into believing the attack will come
> from the tail rather than the head.
>
> Camouflage involves imitating the appearance of the environment to
> avoid being seen by predators or prey.  Katydids look like leaves or
> sometimes sticks.  Countershading involves a light underside and a
> dark top, to counterbalance normal shadowing, and is employed by grey
> reef sharks and pronghorn antelope.
>
> Deception is not some barbaric human invention - it is ingrained in
> use by evolution for a reason - because we need it, to survive.
> Deception is often as natural as breathing, and we lie not only to
> others, but to ourselves.  Honesty often requires actual effort.
>
> Notice a number of the examples above involve colour, which is not a
> hard signal to fake, making such signals conventional signals.
> Basically, it is much like signaling that you are strong by wearing a
> 'Weight lifter' t-shirt - not hard to fake, and if too many do fake
> it, the signal may become worthless.
>
> According to the handicap principle, a signal may be difficult to fake
> if producing it requires the trait being signaled.  Having muscles
> tends to require being strong, hence having big muscles is an
> assessment signal for being strong.  Moose have large antlers, which
> requires strong bodies to support, hence antlers are an assessment
> signal for strength.
>
> The following questionnaire is helpful:
> 1.  What is the cost of sending the signal if honest?
> 2.  What is the cost of sending the signal if deceiving?
> 3.  What are the advantages to the deceiver?
> 4.  Statistically, how reliable is the signal?  (May require
> experimentation.)
> 5.  What is the cost of observing the signal?
> 6.  What is the cost of being deceived?
>
> If the cost of sending the signal if deceiving is significantly
> higher than the cost of sending it if honest, and the advantages
> to the deceiver are not too great, it should generally be
> fairly reliable.  However, the cost of observing the signal relative to
> the
> cost of being deceived and the reliability of the signal itself is
> important to deciding whether to bother.
>
> References
>
> * 'The Arts of Deception: Mimicry and Camouflage'.
> http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0306.htm
> * Zahavi, Amotz.  'The fallacy of conventional signaling'.  1993.
>
> http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0962-8436%2819930529%29340%3A1292%3C227%3AT
> FOCS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
> * Donath, Judith S.  'Identity and Deception in the Virtual
> Community'.  Communities in Cyberspace.  MIT Media Lab.  1996.
> http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>



-- 
-Brock