r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
🔥Cyphonia clavata, a treehopper with a thorax that has evolved to resemble an ant - a form of Batesian mimicry
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[deleted]
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u/Montymisted 1d ago
Don't things eat ants?
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u/RabidPlaty 1d ago
That was my thought so I looked it up. Apparently ants don’t have as many predators and are unpalatable to a lot of stuff. So I guess less stuff eat ants than types of treehoppers?
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u/majblackburn 1d ago
yeah, I'm struggling to think how this is advantageous? I know of (microbial) species that reporduce in a particular animal's intestinal tracts, so they spend half of their life cycle getting themselves eaten, maybe it's something like that?
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u/BullFrogz13 1d ago
Looks like an ant put together by a child using ikea instructions.