Reversing evolution: conspicuous mimicry vs. camoflage Two
papers this week on the type of mimicry named for Henry Bates,
whose book on exploring the Amazon was published shortly after
The Origin of Species. Batesian mimic species resemble foul-
tasting or dangerous species, thereby avoiding being eaten, even
though they are not actually dangerous themselves. Bates worked
on butterflies whose wing patterns resembled those of other
species. Butterflies are still the best-known examples of
mimicry, but there are also examples of mimicry (involving
behavior) in snakes and octopi. The two papers are: Once a
Batesian mimic, not always a Batesian mimic: mimic reverts back
to ancestral phenotype when the model is absent by Kathleen
Prudic and Jeffrey Oliver, of the University of Arizona, and
Colour pattern specification in the Mocker swallowtail Papilio
dardanus: the transcription factor invected is a candidate for
the mimicry locus H by Rebecca Clark and colleagues in the UK,
Australia, Kenya, and Germany. Both were