The animal world is always full of surprises. Even a long-studied species can hold a few secrets hidden between their fur or ...

The mimicry is near-perfect. For example, the Australian hammer orchid has taken advantage of a mating ritual of the Thynnid wasp, which involves a female wasp waiting on top of a branch or plant ...

Their bodies are also yellow with a dark pattern. The similar colouration and pattern shared by a number of social wasps is a form of Müllerian mimicry. This is where well-defended species have ...

There are dents on its dark-coloured, narrow-lobed labellum known as pseudo eyes, together with a glistening, iridescent wing-like patch, all adding up to a very convincing lady digger wasp. Mimicry ...

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Sometimes the mimicry is not visual but auditory, as in some harmless flies that emit a sound just like the buzzing of an angry bee or wasp, keeping attackers away. Another, more unusual variety ...

As the wasp hovered above the nest ... of mimicking the defensive signaling of a harmful species as Batesian mimicry. For example, some non-venomous milk snakes have developed a pattern of ...