Migration is a butterfly's journey across landscapes, camouflage and mimicry are it's journey through perception". I hope you are landing here after reading the previous blog on butterfly migration. Did you just said no ? then migrate to that ASAP.
Butterfly migration is still not very well studied but camouflage and mimicry have been debated, documented and even dissected across decades. Sit tight, sip something and let's dive deep in.
What's the difference ?
Camouflage is mimicking the environment, mimicry is mimicking another organism. Wait, that’s too smooth to grasp. Let’s slow it down:
Camouflage simply means blending into the background, mimicry is blending into someone's else.
Other Survival Styles
- Disruptive coloration: Breaks up body outline
- Counter-shading: Dark above, light below
- Aposematic coloration: Warning colors that signal toxicity
- Self-decoration: Using debris or plant material
- Disguise: Resembling inanimate objects like leaves or bark
I have a strange habit of talking about things out of nowhere like here’s one.
The earliest known camouflage: A stick insect from the Middle Jurassic of China that mimicked a spiny plant nicknamed Klimpel’s Hedgehog Cactus. Its fossil shows abdominal extensions and femoral spines a brilliant example of plant mimicry long before butterflies took the stage.
Types of Mimicry
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| Dark Evening Brown looking outside waiting for rain to stop |
1. Batesian Mimicry: A non-toxic butterfly mimics a toxic one for protection. Example: Great Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina) mimics the Common Crow (Euploea core) to avoid bird predation.
2. Müllerian Mimicry Multiple toxic species share similar warning signals. Example: Striped Tiger (Danaus genutia) and Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus) — both toxic, both orange-black-white.
Camouflage Starts Much Earlier
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| Red Pierrot Caterpillar feeding on Bryophyllum plant |
The camouflage in the butterflies begins in the larval stage. They often mimic twigs or leaf veins. For instance, Evening brown which can be easily seen during the monsoon season they mimic dry leafs and often seen disguising in dead and dry leaves. They are one of the master camouflage(Camouflager ? is there such a word ? If not, it is now).
Disguise vs Mimicry
When we say mimicry we generally mean resembling other organisms(example: danaid eggfly mimicking plain tiger or great egg fly mimicking common crow for protection, as both of them consume toxic plants(Calotropis and Oleander) during their larval stage.
While disguise means resembling inanimate objects like leaves, flowers etc(Example: Oakblue disguises as dry leaf, treebrown disguises as tree barks etc).
The Tiger Complex
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| Stripped Tiger butterfly nectaring on Hygrophila auriculata plant |
Butterflies having orange-yellow-black pattern(resembling tigers) have huge advantage of not getting preyed upon(as birds knows very well that these colors means they are distasteful and toxic). And opportunists like the Common Wanderer take advantage of this tiger complex.
I hope you enjoyed reading this one. Until then, keep observing, keep learning and keep reading!
Note: This mark our end of this series. In future as we will gain more knowledge and insights on this we will surely write some more stuff till then enjoy whatever i have to offer in the upcoming blogs.
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