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Evolutionary biology

Life imperfectly imitates life

Nature volume 483, pages 410–411 (2012)Cite this article

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Some species evolve to resemble another species so as to protect themselves from predation, but this mimicry is often imprecise. An analysis of hoverflies suggests why imperfect imitation persists in the face of natural selection. See Letter p.461

One hundred and fifty years ago, the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates1 discovered a phenomenon that he regarded as “a most powerful proof of the theory of natural selection”. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who had proposed natural selection as the engine of evolution only a few years earlier, agreed. Indeed, Darwin2 considered Bates's manuscript to be “one of the most remarkable and admirable papers I ever read”.

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Figure 1: A fly in wasp's clothing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David W. Pfennig and David W. Kikuchi are in the Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.,

    David W. Pfennig & David W. Kikuchi

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  1. David W. Pfennig
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  2. David W. Kikuchi
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Correspondence to David W. Pfennig or David W. Kikuchi.

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Pfennig, D., Kikuchi, D. Life imperfectly imitates life. Nature 483, 410–411 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/483410a

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