What do you call an amazon? » « The flamboyantly cheesy Dr Oz

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Shhhh. I’m in disguise.

This leafhopper is a myrmecomorph – it has sprouted lumpy dark extensions of its carapace that resemble an ant. It spends its whole life living in a costume!

Cyphonia clavata: The treehopper Cyphonia clavata with a mimic of an ant (top right) extending from its pronotum (photos: M. Stensmyr). The ‘ant’ presumably serves to deter predators as the treehopper struts about its habitat (lower left, photo: S. Sanowar). This peculiar-looking insect has also been depicted historically several times, as exemplified here by illustrations by (from top to bottom) Caspar Stoll (1788), Jean Antoine Coquebert de Montbret (1799–1804) and William W. Fowler (1900).

Cyphonia clavata: The treehopper Cyphonia clavata with a mimic of an ant (top right) extending from its pronotum (photos: M. Stensmyr). The ‘ant’ presumably serves to deter predators as the treehopper struts about its habitat (lower left, photo: S. Sanowar). This peculiar-looking insect has also been depicted historically several times, as exemplified here by illustrations by (from top to bottom) Caspar Stoll (1788), Jean Antoine Coquebert de Montbret (1799–1804) and William W. Fowler (1900).

What do you call an amazon? » « The flamboyantly cheesy Dr Oz

Comments

  6. latveriandiplomat says

    @5: Mimicry doesn’t have to make you look invincible to be useful, just tougher than you really are. From the article:

    the similarity to
    the aggressive and stinging ants of
    the subfamily Myrmicinae is striking.
    Notably, the ant-mimicking structure
    seems to be inverted, with the imitated
    head facing towards the back of the
    treehopper. That way, as the treehopper
    moves forward, it probably creates a
    rather good impression of a reversing
    and agitated ant in erect defensive
    posture, deterring any would-be
    predators.

  11. says

    Rogue Scientist #8
    Your link is seriously borked.

    You can find it here (down the bottom), along with many other entertainingly stupid D&D monsters.

  12. chigau (違う) says

    Kagato #11
    Thanks.
    That has to be the mostest hideoust web-site for alot of spaceandtime.

  13. says

    Here’s a National Geographic article showcasing a fascinating variety of treehoppers.

    Apparently the “helmet” may be modified from a third pair of wings.

    The article also mentions a possible evolutionary pathway for their development, and it neatly summarises the the power of genetic drift as an engine of evolution.

    But why did the treehoppers evolve their bizarre headgear in the first place? “We’re entering the wild guess area here,” says Gompel. He reckons that the early helmets had no role whatsoever. Rather, the important thing is that they didn’t cause the insects any harm. If mutant insects developed a third set of wings, they might die off quickly because the wings might mess with their ability to fly – they would be ‘counter-selected’. “Now if these wings are not real wings, if they are some kind of stubs, they might not interfere at all with flight and can be kept for no reason,” says Gompel. “The adaptive value comes later.”

    This could explain why the helmets have diversified so quickly, evolving their peculiar shapes in less than 40 million years. There is no way that legs or wings could change so quickly – they have important jobs to do and they’re constrained in how they can vary. Without such constraints, the early helmets were free to explore different shapes.

    Neutral mutations may generate the greatest diversity, because beneficial mutations would rapidly become fixed into essential functions, limiting the fitness of variations.

  15. Dark Jaguar says

    Wow, that poor creature got to pick last when evolution was handing out disguises. “I’m an ant!” it says with a dopey grin. Too bad you see a delicious green snack right under it, and the ant mass seemed to evolve backwards like our retinas. Poor thing…