Identifier: evolutionanimall00jord (find matches)
Title: Evolution and animal life; an elementary discussion of facts, processes, laws and theories relating to the life and evolution of animals
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Jordan, David Starr, 1851-1931 Kellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman), 1867-1937
Subjects: Evolution
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

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bee mimickers are mostly flies of various •/ •/ families (Syrphidce, Asilida, Bombyliidce), and their resem-blance to bees is sufficient to and does constantly deceivecollectors. We presume, then, that it equally deceives birdsand other insect enemies. Wasps, too, are mimicked by otherinsects; the wasplike flies, Conopidce, and some of the clear-winged moths, Sesiidce are extremely wasplike in generalseeming. The distasteful monarch butterfly, Anosia plexippus, wide-spread and abundant—a successful butterfly, whose successundoubtedly largely depends on its inedibility in both larval andimaginal stages—is mimicked with extraordinary fidelity of detailby the viceroy, Basilarchia archippus (Fig. 263). The Basil-archias, constituting a genus of numerous species, are with buttwo or three exceptions not at all of the color or pattern ofAnosia, but in the case of the particular species archippus,not only the red-brown ground color, but the fine pattern28 422 EVOLUTION AND ANIMAL LIFE
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FIG. 263.—The mimicking of the inedible monarch butterfly by the edible viceroy.The figure at the top is the monarch, Anosia plexippus. The middle figure is theviceroy, Basilnrchia archippus. The lowest figure is another member of the samegenus, Basilarchia, to show the usual color pattern of the species of the genus. COLOR AND PATTERN IN ANIMALS 423 details in black and whitish, copy faithfully the details in Anosia;only in the addition of a thin blackish line across the discal areaof the hind wings does archippus show any noticeable difference.The viceroy is believed not to be distasteful to birds, but its •> close mimicry of the distasteful monarch undoubtedly leadsto its being constantly mistaken for it by the birds and thusleft unmolested. The subject of mimicry has not been studied largely amongthe insects of our country, but in the tropics and subtropicsnumerous striking examples of mimetic forms have been notedand written about. The members of two large families of butt

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