Most of us get scared at the sight of a snake. It is the fear of a poisonous bite that scares us. Even if the snake is not poisonous, it scares us! So, just looking like something that is deadly, is enough to scare potential predators. Mimicking deadly venomous animals can be a good evolutionary strategy. For example, in the following video the animal looks like a snake, but is actually a caterpillar!!
Nicholas and colleagues use blenny fish to understand the evolution of venom and fangs, the apparatus for providing the venom. They find that one specie of blenny fish contains venom, but multiple other species of blenny fish only contain fangs, but not the venom! It seems the species only containing the fang, but not the poison, are mimicking the poisonous specie and taking advantage of the threat of the deadly venom. Just having the fangs without the poison provides advantages, without actually putting energy into generating the poison. To know more, please listen to Nick.
To know more, please refer to :
The Evolution of Fangs, Venom, and Mimicry Systems in Blenny Fishes
Casewell, Visser, Baumann, Dobson, Han et al., Current Biology, 2017
Nicholas and colleagues use blenny fish to understand the evolution of venom and fangs, the apparatus for providing the venom. They find that one specie of blenny fish contains venom, but multiple other species of blenny fish only contain fangs, but not the venom! It seems the species only containing the fang, but not the poison, are mimicking the poisonous specie and taking advantage of the threat of the deadly venom. Just having the fangs without the poison provides advantages, without actually putting energy into generating the poison. To know more, please listen to Nick.
To know more, please refer to :
The Evolution of Fangs, Venom, and Mimicry Systems in Blenny Fishes
Casewell, Visser, Baumann, Dobson, Han et al., Current Biology, 2017
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