Old discoveries from the Amazon: Aposematic and Parasitic enemies :)

[Kyriakos]

After looking at this drawing by Junji Ito:

i searched a bit for images/traits of milipedes, but in the end was too disgusted and instead went on to read about the reason some insects have very bright/lively colors (such as red and yellow). Up to then i thought this was because they were all poisonous, but now learned that some of them are actually mimics of the warning colors and patterns, while they would not harm a predator who would try to eat them.
This particular type of mimesis is called Batesian, named after a mid 19th century British biologist who lived for a decade in the region of the Amazon rain forest so as to examine the species there.

Also worth noting is that some crypto-predatory insects (parasitic ones) do the opposite: while they are poisonous, they develop a cryptic color pattern on their bodies, so that they lure predators who die after trying to eat them, serving as a good host for the hell about to devour them from within...

All this, obviously, gives me good starting points for a short story

 

[Jorlaan]

That's a creepy damn picture.

 

[Henry IX]

Not sure this belongs in this forum...

Millipedes are kind of cute (OK, my degree was partly in biology), if you want freaky try centipedes...

(look up the footage from 'Life in the Undergrowth' by David Attenborough of foot long centipedes catching bats, sadly taken down from youtube)

 

[Kyriakos]

Centipedes are very ugly, yes...

Particularly the ones with yellow feet. They seem utterly nasty

And Ito is a great Manga horror artist

 

[Lord Finnish]

Learned about this in a uni course on ecology. Got a good score from the test too

 

[Amallric]

What does this do in the history forum...again...

 

[Kyriakos]

It is about 19th century advances in Biology, by Bates and his division of mimetic insects.

Honest

 

[olvirki]

Huh, when I googled millipedes I was asked to confirm that I was not a robot.

 

[Hibernian]

You people do know that Millipedes are quite obviously not Insects, right? Insects have 6 legs, Millipedes have quite a few more than that...

Like my biology teacher always liked to repeat "All Insects are Arthropods, but not all Arthropods are Insects!".

Arthropods are a massive Phylum of animals, Insects are just one Class within that Phylum. Millipedes are in a class called Diplopods, and Centipedes are in a (sister) class called Chilopods, which together make up the Sub-Phylum of the Myriapods (that's the words you should use when talking about Millipedes and Centipedes, definitely not "insects").

 

[olvirki]

You people do know that Millipedes are quite obviously not Insects, right? Insects have 6 legs, Millipedes have quite a few more than that...

Like my biology teacher always liked to repeat "All Insects are Arthropods, but not all Arthropods are Insects!".

Arthropods are a massive Phylum of animals, Insects are just one Class within that Phylum. Millipedes are in a class called Diplopods, and Centipedes are in a (sister) class called Chilopods, which together make up the Sub-Phylum of the Myriapods (that's the words you should use when talking about Millipedes and Centipedes, definitely not "insects").

No one in this thread said they were. Yes the OP maybe implied that they were (by speaking about his research on colored insects) but its entirely possible that he is fully aware of the difference and he just started researching these biological phenomena in a different group of animals. You are maybe thinking of that other thread in the OT (Ugliest or coolest insects/arachnids?), where the OP reffered to millipedes as an insect or an arachnid if I recall correctly.

I (and probably others in this thread, like Henry IX which has a degree partly in biology ) am btw fully aware of the difference.

Edit: Oh wait, the OP actually did strongly hint that millipedes are insects in the 4th comment in this thread.

 

[Cuthuthulu]

Huh, when I googled millipedes I was asked to confirm that I was not a robot.

Well, are you a robot?

 

[olvirki]

Well, are you a robot?

I passed the test, don't listen to a word he says .

 

[Kyriakos]

I am guilty, sorry I am aware, of course, that all insects have 6 legs, but the term (the Greek one as well, which is Entoma) literally means that they are beings which are neatly disected, and i suppose this is also true for centipedes and milepedes (?). Although obviously they are not divided to 3 parts (head, thorax, abdomen).
Some of those beings even have reserve brains in their different bits of thorax.

 

[olvirki]

I am guilty, sorry I am aware, of course, that all insects have 6 legs, but the term (the Greek one as well, which is Entoma) literally means that they are beings which are neatly disected, and i suppose this is also true for centipedes and milepedes (?). Although obviously they are not divided to 3 parts (head, thorax, abdomen).

Yeah don't worry. One can easily make a slip of tongue or make some mistake. F.e. I think my biology teacher (who was actually a biologist) made this slip of the tongue in class.

Yeah I think you could describe all arthropods as being dissected.

Funny thing though, in Iceland we have totally different words for these groups (insects: skordýr, arthropods: liðdýr) but the words basically have the same meaning, and thus one can hit the same problem as you do even if you are speaking/writing in Icelandic.

Some of those beings even have reserve brains in their different bits of thorax.

Yeah I love that fact about insects . This is the sort of stuff that makes them so alien and interesting (though to be fair, we have an extra brain of our own in our intestines).

Edit: Oh btw, found out why google wished to confirm my species. There was some sort of search-virus in my system.

 

[Seli]

Interesting the mimicry can remain even after the animal that is mimicked disappears (for a while at least).

http://phys.org/news/2014-06-mimicry-scarlet-kingsnake-snake-coral.html

(Phys.org) —A pair of research biologists has found that a harmless snake that mimics a dangerous snake increased its mimicry after the dangerous snake disappeared from one local area. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, Christopher Akcali and David Pfennig of the University of North Carolina describe their findings in studying snakes in the North Carolina Sandhills and their surprise at discovering how one adapted to the demise of the other.

 

[olvirki]

Interesting the mimicry can remain even after the animal that is mimicked disappears (for a while at least).

http://phys.org/news/2014-06-mimicry-scarlet-kingsnake-snake-coral.html

Yeah this is pretty weird, why is it better to look more alike to the dangerous snake after he is no longer in the area ? Maybe to much resemblance confuses the snakes (f.e. in mating or something) ? In any case the fear of snakes can live on for a long time. Wasn't there a squirrel population/species that had been isolated from snakes for 600 000 years and still had fear of snakes (or something along the lines of that) ?

Edit: Oh and if I had read the abstract I would have read their explanation for this (and the time those squirrel have been isolated from snakes is pretty long considering they are still afraid of them, maybe I mismember, can anyone confirm or refute it ?).

 

[Arilou]

After looking at this drawing by Junji Ito:

i searched a bit for images/traits of milipedes, but in the end was too disgusted and instead went on to read about the reason some insects have very bright/lively colors (such as red and yellow). Up to then i thought this was because they were all poisonous, but now learned that some of them are actually mimics of the warning colors and patterns, while they would not harm a predator who would try to eat them.
This particular type of mimesis is called Batesian, named after a mid 19th century British biologist who lived for a decade in the region of the Amazon rain forest so as to examine the species there.

Also worth noting is that some crypto-predatory insects (parasitic ones) do the opposite: while they are poisonous, they develop a cryptic color pattern on their bodies, so that they lure predators who die after trying to eat them, serving as a good host for the hell about to devour them from within...

All this, obviously, gives me good starting points for a short story

Dude, you're breaking one of the cardinal rules of the internet: DON'T POST JUNJI ITO WITHOUT WARNING FIRST!

 

[Hibernian]

Yeah this is pretty weird, why is it better to look more alike to the dangerous snake after he is no longer in the area ? Maybe to much resemblance confuses the snakes (f.e. in mating or something) ? In any case the fear of snakes can live on for a long time. Wasn't there a squirrel population/species that had been isolated from snakes for 600 000 years and still had fear of snakes (or something along the lines of that) ?

Edit: Oh and if I had read the abstract I would have read their explanation for this (and the time those squirrel have been isolated from snakes is pretty long considering they are still afraid of them, maybe I mismember, can anyone confirm or refute it ?).

It's perfectly logical that animals would retain a fear of certain predators, since most of these instinctive fears are passed on in the genes. Like why humans in developed countries still have an inherent fear of say bears, even though bears may not have lived in their country for thousands of years (having been hunted to extinction). It probably takes millions of year of the absence of a predator to make a species no longer afraid of it (like say the way Dodos had no natural fear of humans or their dangerous pets).

 

[olvirki]

It's perfectly logical that animals would retain a fear of certain predators, since most of these instinctive fears are passed on in the genes. Like why humans in developed countries still have an inherent fear of say bears, even though bears may not have lived in their country for thousands of years (having been hunted to extinction). It probably takes millions of year of the absence of a predator to make a species no longer afraid of it (like say the way Dodos had no natural fear of humans or their dangerous pets).

Well 600 000 years is on a scale which species can easily evolve (well many species at least have, like ours) and therefor some big changes can happen in that time. I guess most often there isn't really bad to be afraid of an extinct threat but at the same time there isn't much of an incentive to fix mutations (aka kill the mutated individual) that make the animal less afraid of that threat.

This fear could also go away even faster. What was the (primary) reason for the lack of immunity against many diseases the Amerindians had ? Was it that they had lost their immunity or had the diseases evolved new weapons which the Amerindians had no defenses against (and some of the diseases had not affected humans when the (small) founding population of the Amerindians was isolated, right ?). If the former is true defenses against threats can become much rarer on time frame 60 times shorter, counting in years, and even shorter counting in generations, even if they are (at first glance) not a burden if the threat does not exist anymore. But if so, maybe fear of snakes has more "genetic failsafes" or something along the lines of that.

 

[Amallric]

Micro-organisms and viruses evolve VERY fast. Amerindians were very isolated, while Europeans have been repeatedly subject to waves of migration and generic exchange. Their immunities were being constantly "updated".