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Media Release

Scientists expose a pretty fishy deception

August 21, 2003

As in life, much in nature is not as it seems and researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of British Columbia have discovered another evolutionary pathway to deception.

In nature, many species evolve to mimic one another, mostly to bluff predators and improve their chance of survival.

How mimicry evolves, however, is poorly understood and has puzzled evolutionary biologists for more than a century.

Dr Julian Caley, an evolutionary ecologist at AIMS, and Dr Dolph Schulter have exposed how mimicry might evolve by investigating how closely a mimic must resemble the species it models for the resemblance to provide protection from predators.

They examined a leatherjacket reef fish species that cunningly masquerades as the toxic pufferfish.

Their experiment also revealed the creative skills of the scientists who painstakingly moulded and hand-painted plastic replicas of leatherjacket reef fish to mimic the unpalatable and often lethal pufferfish.

By creating a series of leatherjacket replicas resembling the pufferfish by degrees, the scientists were able to estimate how much protection from predators was afforded by different levels of resemblance.

"Previously, it was thought the resemblance would have to be very similar to provide much protection at all, but this study demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case. Only a slight resemblance made an impact. It seems predators view the risk of eating a toxic pufferfish by mistake is too great to take a punt on," said Dr Caley.

He said the research reveals another pathway by which animals might evolve mimicry, vastly improving their chances of survival. "It shows mimics can evolve in a way people thought wasn’t possible."

"It may be that the nature of the medium of water and the ability of fish to discern fine pattern from a distance may not be good," Dr Caley said.

The research is fundamental to understanding how and why evolution works, he said.

Media contacts
Dr Julian Caley, AIMS Principle Research Scientist 
Telephone: 07 47534148 
Email: j.caley@aims.gov.au 

Theresa Millard, AIMS Communication Manager 
Telephone: 07 47534250 
Email: t.millard@aims.gov.au 

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Last updated - August 15, 2003

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