Evolutionarily speaking, the ultimate goal of a lifeform is to reproduce and stave off extinction. Many plants and animals ...

Mimicry in animals is a common form of protection from predators. For instance, two distasteful or toxic butterflies may mimic each other for mutual defense, as the viceroy and monarch butterflies do.

Birds are among the most intelligent and talkative animals in the entire world. Their babbling, chatty, and loose-lipped mimicry has inspired various stories from across all human cultures. However, ...

Nature's survival often hinges on intelligence and deception rather than brute strength. Animals like the mimic octopus, lyrebird, and fork-tailed drongo employ remarkable tricks, from camouflage and ...

Growing up, I can remember almost all of the tattered and worn posters that adorned the classrooms of my school. Many of them had historical timelines, periodic tables, and the like. However, many ...

Eleanor has an undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Reading and a master’s in wildlife documentary production from the University of Salford. Eleanor has an undergraduate degree in ...

CHANG: That is Yoko, a cockatoo that recently participated in a research survey looking at the phenomenon of vocal mimicry in parrots - what we often refer to when we say that parrots are, quote, ...

A hairy (left) and a downy (right) woodpecker. Source: Indiana Ivy/ Fair use If self-deception, also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology, is bad enough, then discovering that you’ve ...

Mimicry is widespread in the animal kingdom. Some caterpillars can make themselves look like venomous snakes. The chicks of an Amazonian bird called the cinereous mourner shapeshift into poisonous ...

AN interesting point in the Volucellæ as examples of aggressive mimicry is the fact that they were first used to support the teleological theories of an earlier day, and were subsequently claimed by ...

For some of us, the opportunity comes once a year — to try on another look and pretend to be something other than ourselves. But for some species, costumes are an everyday essential, and the stakes ...