[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢Óï¡«m.moreplr.com]
[00:00.00] We 're looking at animal behavior this week, and let's turn now, class,
[00:06.53] to one of its most dramatic manifestations animal mimicry.
[00:10.37] Organisms that are good to eat, or that are attacked for other reasons, often develop devices to protect themselves from their attackers,
[00:19.27] In order to survive, and in order to reproduce and pass their genes on to the next generation.
[00:24.38] And one of these techniques, one of these strategies, is to look like something else. to look like something that is not good to eat,
[00:32.10] or something that is otherwise of no interest to the predator.
[00:34.57] An organism that does this, that resembles something else, is called a" mimic" and the thing that it has evolved to resemble is called the" model",
[00:44.17] while the predator that it is trying to mislead is called the" recipient" - the one that receives the image.
[00:51.55] Some mimics do this by adopting camouflage, which is a resemblance to something of no interest to its enemy,
[00:59.19] and by doing this, they become invisible, they are hidden.
[01:03.02] Many animals insects, lizards, amphibians mimic the abundant plant life in the habitat around them.
[01:10.01] I 'm sure that you 've seen green grasshoppers and brown moths that seem to be well hidden on grass stems and tree trunks when they 're motionless.
[01:18.24] But the Leaf tailed Gecko, a small lizard in Madagascar, is a master at this.
[01:23.18] It avoids its enemies by looking exactly like cluster of old dead leaves.
[01:28.07] And there are various species of katydids, grasshopper like insects, that have managed to duplicate the appearance of leaves with startling accuracy,
[01:37.19] in all stages of growth, some species looking like fresh green leaves and others looking like old decaying leaves complete with leaf veins,
[01:46.59] weathered edges and mildew spots!
[01:49.30] These adaptations make these animals difficult or impossible for a predator to identify or even notice,
[01:55.53] and so these otherwise defenseless creatures are overlooked or passed by.