this episode was brought to you by curiosity stream hi I'm just kidding and this is analogic ii ii ii ii ii mister i should like to tell you that i have seen some of the experiments shown in this film as you can imagine technique is everything the natural world is filled with imposters these animals disguise themselves to look like something they're not if their goals are not unified and different species use mimicry for a variety of reasons from defense to attack to camouflage [Music] mimicry has formed the basis of many of our imaginary worlds the replicants of Blade Runner the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica and the shape-shifting scrawls of Captain Marvel to name a few and like all good science-fiction they take inspiration from nature in a nutshell mimicry is an adaptation that helps an animal the mimic resembles something else the model with the intent of deceiving predators or prey there are a few broad categories of mimicry the first is bait see and mimicry this is when an animal adapts to look like a more dangerous animal this is the sheep in wolf's clothing method species that use bait scene mimicry generally imitate species that are opposite ik species that have evolved strong warning signals to tell predators that they're dangerous this strategy works best when the population of models far outnumbers the mimics otherwise predators wouldn't be particularly wary of their APIs Ematic prey whose bark turned out to be much worse than their bite probably the most iconic baits in mimic is the mimic octopus unlike many other mimics they don't just stick to one model and are able to copy a variety of species usually venomous ones they can rapidly change their body shape pulling their arms back and swimming along the ocean floor to resemble a banded soul a type of flat fish that has poison glands along the base of its fins if the mimic needs to swim across the open ocean they will display a striped pattern and hold their arms up around them to resemble the venomous lionfish and perhaps most impressively in an active defense they will bury themselves leaving just two arms exposed to resemble the highly venomous sea Krait a sea snake with enough venom to kill an adult human in short if it looks like a duck swims like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably a mimic octopus similarly this is not a bee it's a hover fly these stingless flies disguise themselves as bees in hopes of deterring predators also this is not an ant it's a mantis these baby predators have adapted to resemble ants which are notoriously less tasty than mantids likewise this is not a snake it's a hawk moth caterpillar these caterpillars have adapted themselves to resemble highly venomous Vipers for obvious reasons and finally these are not honey badgers they're cheetah cubs batesy mimics are found all over the world and they're particularly common in butterflies and moths many species of butterfly that are tasty to predators like the tiger leaf wing mimic butterflies that aren't so tasty like the famously disgusting Heliconius several species of moth will use acoustic mimicry they will mimic the sounds of moths that are less appealing predators like the tiger mom the fauna muta moth is an extraordinary case as they're deaf but can reproduce tiger moth sounds cuckoos use mimicry as a core component in their parasite host relationships cuckoos are brood parasites and lay their eggs and another bird's nest tricking them into raising their young the famous Blue Valentine the cuckoo bird invades the nest of a pair of tiddler the cuckoo will lay its own egg in the net while stealing away the tickler came to eat for itself and here come the to flock to chase the fool away but the damage has already been done the eggs have been swamped eventually the cuckoo egg will hatch and the tip box will raise the cuckoo out their own [Music] they've evolved plumage that resembles sparrowhawks and scientists found that Reed Warblers a cuckoo host species are less likely to attack a cuckoo that more closely resembles a hawk when they first invade the nest likewise several different species of spider mimic ants though this mimicry comes at a cost the small waste they have to adapt to resemble ants greatly reduces how many egg sacs they can have and thus limits their reproduction having made this super nursery the mother takes no more interest in her young and she soon died the hawk moth caterpillar isn't the only caterpillar that's pretending to be something that it's not the eastern tiger swallowtail has false eye spots and an appendage that sticks out of them that looks like a snake sniffing the air with its tongue it also looks identical to Caterpie the second group of mimics are those that use mullerian mimicry these groups all send the same honest signals that they're dangerous this is similar to a pass emmett ISM and that many are displaying bright coloration but the difference is that the entire group will display similar patterns mimicking one another this is why poisonous frogs are brightly colored and why wasps and bees share their iconic colors this can be seen in mammals by the white and black stripes that honey badgers skunks and polecat share a mozillian mimicry is when a deadly animal mimics a less deadly animal under teachers explaining that there are two kinds of attack with warning and without any warning this one is interesting because unlike other mimics they aren't trying to look as scary as possible they're trying to look kind of scary if a deadly predator is so deadly that anything that attacks it will die then the attacking predators can't learn to avoid them in the future and other predators will continue this rate of attack the deadly predator with us benefit from camouflage rather than a PO semitism as it would reduce the number of attacks but in special cases like with the texas coral snake they are able to imitate the similar looking but much less deadly false coral snake this allows for predators to attack false coral snakes and not die thus learning to avoid those types of snakes in the future and reducing the overall number of attacks on Texas coral snakes this is our little coal snake buddy here I just kind of wanted to go over some of the coral snake facts that we have he has that that red on yellow pattern that everybody's talking about the same thing with any non-venomous snakes that that kind of look like coral snakes they can they can also have the red and yellow pattern that the full snake normally has if you're too deadly you can't teach lessons this leads to aggressive mimicry this is the wolf in sheep's clothing approach many of these strategies involve using lures to mimic things that their prey eats for example the frightening alligator snapping turtle has a tongue that resembles a worm they'll open up the nightmare fuel that they call a mouth and wait for prey that are dumb enough to try and eat the worm that is patiently waiting for them in what must look like a cave of then snap no animal can outsmart the allure of a lure perhaps the most terrifying aggressive mimic is the Iranian spider tailed Viper they employ both a mimic lure and highly effective camouflage to hunt their prey the tips of their tails resemble spiders and they will sit perfectly still flicking their tail to and fro as if a were a spider in hopes of tricking a passing bird the black Drago is a small bird found in Asia that mimics the alarm calls of several species including the meerkat hearing these false alarm warnings the meerkats will abandon whatever they just caught to flee for safety leaving the meal all to the drongo finally we come to what might be the most beautiful of all the mimics the orchid mantis these gorgeous mantises have evolved to be almost indistinguishable from orchids they use this camouflage when hunting they'll climb up an orchid and stand next to it when a flower seeking fly comes by for a snack the Mantis strikes looks really do kill the orchid mantis is just won in an amazing order of highly camouflaged ambush hunters one of the coolest is the dead leaf mantis if you want to learn more about this amazing insect then you should watch the prey which is streaming right now on curiosity stream the dock is only 11 minutes long but it feels like watching a Marvel movie it's action-packed tense and shot in a way that I've really never seen before in a nature documentary the prey has been nominated for and won some pretty impressive Awards too it's nonstop action from an insect that likes to spend its time as still as possible I'm honestly still trying to figure out how they got some of these shots it's so freakin cool and you can watch it for free just go to curiosity stream dot-com slash animal logic and claim your 30-day free trial with this promo code animal logic if you love documentaries as much as I do then I think you'll really let Curiosity stream it's a subscription streaming service that has over twenty four hundred titles many of which are fascinating nature documentaries they have another doc from the filmmaker behind the crate called debug which you should watch right now if you like those you should follow curiosity stream on Instagram too they post a lot of really cool behind-the-scenes snippets with the filmmaker and his creepy crawlies and it was you know starting from a really wide angle shot sixteen millimeter and then as the camera moved forward you would eventually come into the macro world of the insect you had to get a dolly set up you had to have a special type of lens that you can zoom as well as focus at the same time if you're looking for something cool to binge this weekend you should sign up for curiosity stream so what should we talk about next please let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe down below for new episodes of Animal Logic second-nature every other week thanks so much for watching you great immensely powerful arm each with its two rolls of Deathly suckers mmm look out that slithering death is right on you you crush your bones into jelly look out boy look out