( Read about a cichlid that plays dead to attract scavenging prey.)Įxactly how the dupe gives P. straeleni actually preys on many different species of fish-and not those it impersonates. straeleni to sidle up and eat its look-alikes. It was previously thought that this resemblance allowed P. straeleni cichlid looks a lot like two other cichlid species in the lake. It usually takes three animals for misinformation to be communicated-the mimic, its model, and the target that receives the information.īut a 2015 study in Biology Letters describes a species of cichlid in East Africa's Lake Tanganyika that casts a much wider net. ( See more beautiful pictures of undersea camouflage.) Clever Cichlids The team, which published the encounter in the journal Coral Reefs, believes the orange lure may mimic the glowing worms as a bait-and-switch hunting tactic. On a recent night dive in Dauin, Philippines, De Brauwer and a colleague noticed frogfish lures that looked like fluorescent orange worms swimming nearby (watch video). “Frogfish are voracious ambush predators, and they eat pretty much anything that comes by and fits into their mouths,” says Maarten De Brauwer, a marine biologist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. (Also see ' Fish Mimics Mimic Octopus That Mimics Fish.') To hunt, a frogfish wiggles an appendage near its mouth that mimics tiny sea critters such as worms and shrimp, tasty tidbits for unsuspecting fish.

Members of the anglerfish family, frogfish tend to stay put and blend into their shallow water habitats. (Related: ' Bondage, Cannibalism, and Castration-Spiders' Wild Sex Lives.') Hungry Frogfish Instead of hooking up, the deceived spider is the main course for a deadly dinner date. A would-be mate-the predatory Portia-shakes a hanging leaf, attracting a female looking for love. Then there’s the Portia spider that Cross calls the femme fatale. (Other animals, such as snapping turtles, aquatic birds such as egrets, and aquatic snakes, sport tongue lures.) Scientists only recently discovered the behavior, the first time it's been recorded in terrestrial snakes. Take the South African puff adder Bitis arietans, which mimics an insect's movements by wagging its tongue slowly and deliberately to attract nearby amphibians.

“The animal sends out a signal that is beneficial to the sender but disadvantageous to the receiver,” explains Cross, a former psychologist who's fascinated with the way hunters “play mind games with prey.” ( Find the animal mimics in this National Geographic interactive.) In other words, an animal pretends to be another animal to dupe and lure prey close enough for chomping. “It’s a form of deception that we call aggressive mimicry,” says Fiona Cross, a zoologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. But in the actual wild, misleading communication techniques are means to meals for many species. These days, misinformation is a term that’s wildly thrown around.

Grass spider predators