Example of coevolution: Monarch and Viceroy butterflies

Example of coevolution

Monarch and Viceroy butterflies

Limenitis archippus

Danaus plexippus

Viceroy butterfly

Monarch butterfly

The larval (or caterpillar) stage

Poplar and willow tree leaves

Milkweed

Viceroy caterpillar

Monarch caterpillar

Aposematism is the biologist term used when species have bright flashy colors (usually red or orange paired with black) that warns predators that they are distasteful or toxic to eat.

Aposematism

Henry Walter Bates

In evolutionary biology, mimicry is a superficial resemblance of one organism to another or to natural objects among which it lives that secures it a selective advantage (such as a protection form predation).

Mimicry

Coevolution between the model: the one which is mimiced (the Monarch Butterfly) and the mimic: the one which mimics (the Viceroy Butterfly).

Introduced in biology by Henry Walter Bates, a batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry in which an edible specie use mimicry for reproducing the morphology, color and/or shape of other species in order to be confused with other species that are unpalatable.

Batesian mimicry

Mullerian mimicry is a form of mimicry when two species share similar anti-predator characteristics (in this case, inedibility) and co-mimic each other.

Mullerian mimicry

Natural selection is one of the driving mechanism of evolution. It's when organisms who have special traits are better adapted to survive, so they reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation.

Natural selection

Theory of evolution (1859) by Charles Darwin

It allowed for some species to develop new evolutionary innovations helping them to survive and reproduce.

Role of evolution

Coevolution means the multiple transformations during the evolution of two species in interaction in their environment.

Coevolution

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