- It is n secret that to protect itself from predators, some animals, including snake do mimicry to fool them. And in this way they survive the tough jungle life.
- But the first time Indian researchers have reported about a snake who performs dual mimicry to protect itself from predators and in latter stage changes its colour so that prey doesn’t scare away from it.
- Researchers have found the ‘Calliophis bibroni’ snake in the Western Ghat. It is a tropical coral snake.
- In its juvenile age, this snake develops a red colouration with black stripes to match the venomous snake named Sinomicrurus macclellandi. As predators consider red snake venomous, they don’t come near to it.
- But colour changing mimicry can not be useful forever. In their adult age, they needed preys to survive, as red colouration can scar away prey also. This snake again turns fully black matching with the surrounding environment.
- In this way Calliphis bibroni perfoms dual mimicry to survive the fierce battle of living in forests.
- Batesian Mimicry: It is a type of mimicry where to protect itself from predators, some non-dangerous species (like non-venomous snakes) copy the patterns of dangerous species (like venomous snakes) to fool them. For example, the wolf snake has white stripes on its body resembling krait snake. Oligodon or kukri snakes also fall in this category.
