Comments on: Spectacular mimicry involving 3 species

By: estan

estan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:35:07 +0000

referencing back to what schultze said in his monograph, it may not be poisonous. it’s protection is its hard body. however, he has observed that, one species in particular, P. orbifer was observed on jatropha which, is sometimes used as fish poison

By: infra diggit

infra diggit — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:41:09 +0000

I see!
So does it follow then that Pachyrrhynchus is toxic whereas its mimics are not?

By: estan

estan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:30:46 +0000

i’m referring to abundance in numbers. a mimic cannot be more abundant than the model since it will only fail. when it comes to geographical spread, most pachyrrhynchids are really localized with some species only found at a particular mountain range or a smaller geographical footprint as these are all flightless and inhabits the upper elevations.

just this evening, i read again the monograph of Schultze on the pachyrrhynchids (1923 & 1924) and i might need to correct some items. while the Doliops-Pachyrrhynchus relationship is the perfect form of mimicry: doliops, which is much rarer, often resemble its model species for protection; when it comes to the other curculionid genera, like Pachyrrhynchus, Metapocyrtus, Macrocyrtus, Eupachyrrhynchus, Schultze said that it might actually not about model and mimic. he said that the hard bodies of members of these genera might be protection already and that their similarities might be coincidental owing to the climate, geography and other factors. it might be something surprising but i think much study needs to be done on this particularly interesting characteristic

By: infra diggit

infra diggit — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:18:21 +0000

I see…. you mean the model species is usually the one with the greater geographical spread & not the other way around…?

By: estan

estan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:24:45 +0000

infra, i’m basing this from what I have experienced in other species of the group. In all cases, the genus Doliops are collected in the same area where there is an abundance of the Pachyrrhynchus species and usually have the elytral patterns as well as color similar to the latter. Doliops is also quite rare compared with the Pachyrrhynchus. Similarly, the Polycatus as well as Metapocyrtus, and in this case, the Calidiopsis, are fewer but occur in the same area.

By: infra diggit

infra diggit — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:15:30 +0000

A really cool blog!

I have a question — how do you determine which species is the model and which are the mimics? Just curious…