Some toxic animals fend themselves by displaying bright colors on their bodies so as to warn predators that they are considered toxic, so it is assumed that predators, after years of interacting with them, know that these animals should not be eaten.
Yet some animals display bright colors for mating purposes and possess no way of defending themselves through toxins such as peacocks and guppies.
Wouldn't the avoidance of brightly colored TOXIC animals also extend to the NON TOXIC ones or are there other factors besides the color that the predators consider?
Sorry if this is a confusing question. I know it's a long shot but it would be nice to have some insight to this
Hello Danielle,
The thing is that predators are able to differentiate among colors and patterns in such a way that not all colored preys look the same. When predators learn about aposematic preys, they learn to avoid specific color signals, not all of them. In other words, if a predator leans to avoid an orange defended prey (eg. Monarchs), it can still choose to attack blue, red or yellow preys because it has associated only the color orange to the toxin, not the conspicuousness of the prey.
When defended and non-defended preys present the same color patterns, that is called Batesian mimicry. However, I don't know of any examples of batesian mimics also using their colors in mating rituals.
If you are interested by this subject, the field of predator psychology is getting wildly popular, with several new papers published on the subject since the beginning of 2016. I would suggest reading Skelhorn, J., Halpin, C. G., & Rowe, C. (2016). Learning about aposematic prey. Behavioral Ecology, arw009. (attached), or any paper by Skelhorn for that matter!
Hope this helps!
Article Learning about aposematic prey
Eric provided great insights. See the newest work on the coral snake mimicry problem in the last few months of 2016.
Evolutionary biology: To mimicry and back again
DW Pfennig - Nature, 2016 - nature.com
... 1). However, whether coral-snake mimicry actually occurs has been questioned ever
since, primarily because of the (presumed) non-concordance in the geographical
distributions and abundances of coral snakes and their mimics. ...
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[HTML] from nature.com
[HTML] Coral snakes predict the evolution of mimicry across New World snakes
ARD Rabosky, CL Cox, DL Rabosky, PO Title… - Nature …, 2016 - nature.com
Batesian mimicry, in which harmless species (mimics) deter predators by deceitfully imitating
the warning signals of noxious species (models), generates striking cases of phenotypic
convergence that are classic examples of evolution by natural selection. However, ...
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[PDF] from biorxiv.org
Have coral snake mimics diversified more than non-mimics?
DS Caetano, LRV Alencar, P Passos, FG Grazziotin… - bioRxiv, 2016 - biorxiv.org
... that the contrasting ringed pattern of coral snake mimics can create an illusory effect
when the individuals are moving fast. The effect, called flicker-fusion, can give advantage
to snakes against avian predators independent of mimicry. ...
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[PDF] from researchgate.net
Geographical coincidence and mimicry between harmless snakes (Colubridae: Oxyrhopus) and harmful models (Elapidae: Micrurus)
RJ Bosque, BP Noonan, GR Colli - Global Ecology and …, 2016 - Wiley Online Library
... Mimicry of coral snakes is a classical example of this ecological–evolutionary phenomenon among
vertebrates (Wallace, 1867). The coral snake colour pattern is defined as any dorsal pattern found
in venomous coral snakes or any dorsal pattern containing a significant amount ...
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Unlinked Mendelian inheritance of red and black pigmentation in snakes: Implications for Batesian mimicry
AR Davis Rabosky, CL Cox, DL Rabosky - Evolution, 2016 - Wiley Online Library
... 2015) and much more similar to those recovered for snakes. Thus, coral snake mimicry may
emerge as a surprising demonstration of the greater importance of the genetic architecture behind
the mimetic signal than the classification of a system as Müllerian or Batesian in ...
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Thank you so much Eric Guerra-Grenier and Gordon W Schuett! And I will read up on this more with the articles that you both suggested :)
Please refer Shanbhag et al., 2010. Associative learning in hatchlings of the lizard Calotes versicolor: taste and colour discrimination. Amphibia-Reptilia 31: 475–481.
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