Deadly Doubles?


Watch out! Don't touch that toxic terror above. You can tell by the bright warning colors that it's poisonous, right? Wrong! The painted Antnest Frog only appears to be a poison frog at first glance. What's up with that? It's called mimicry. In other words one kind of frog mimics, or looks like, another kind of frog. Let's say that a hungry predator has a bad experience with the poisonous one. It will also avoid the non-poisonous one. It won't have idea which is which. The safe frog didn't come to look like the poison frog overnight. It took many generations. And now it's as if the frog is living a lie and getting away with it.





(from Ranger Rick magazine)


(there obviously isn't a whole picture of the frog but, that's what the back part of it looks like)