Why do spiders pretend to be ants?

"The whole world is a theater, there are women, men are all actors," said the great Shakespeare. It seems that animals should be added to this list. At least some species of horse spiders. Their talent for acting preserves from death. Moreover, they do not play the role of Hamlet and Khlestakov, but ants.

According to Stanislavsky

The spiders chose the role model correctly: the ants are very aggressive in defense. They are well armed with all the bite tools, as well as formic acid. Horse spiders cannot boast the same defense capabilities. All they can do is escape from danger on their eight paws. Therefore, predator insects prefer to hunt spiders rather than ants.

One of the species of horse spiders, which is called the "spider ant", at some point in evolution realized that it would be best for him to pretend to be a more dangerous neighbor. To do this, the spider ant often stops and raises its front legs, depicting ant antennas.

For greater persuasiveness, spiders choose winding trajectories in segments from 5 to 10 lengths of their body, which also looks like ants. Since spiders move quickly, and many predator insects have rather "slow" vision, the similarities in their eyes are absolute. The predator sees: someone similar to an ant, six paws, two antennas, moves in the same way. I will not take risks!

Not only spiders

Spiders, of course, are an interesting example of mimicry in the wild, but by no means the only one. Protective camouflage is a great example of adaptive evolution: moths can be colored like butterflies, and grasshoppers can be colored like horse bugs. And a bright green caterpillar-snake can scare even a person: due to the shape of its body and color, part of it really resembles the head of a snake.

This cunning caterpillar can also repeat the habits of a snake. For example, in case of danger, she is not afraid to attack, although she cannot inflict any significant damage. Probably, the sharp movement of the snake head in itself looks frightening for the enemy.