▲ Chameleon, is the most familiar animal "cheating" typical, in the Russian writer Chekov's novel "Chameleon", hypocritical greeting, see the wind to make the rudder of the patrol OchuLov is likened to a chameleon. Figure/Wikipedia
Even if it is fraudulent, it does not hurt.
At 3.15, everyone's favorite thing to hear is the exposure of fakes and scammers, but did you know that animals can also "cheat"? Let's expose these "deceptive" behaviors of animals today!
Is it sleeping? Or is it dead?
In the CCTV "Challenge the Impossible" column, there was a 5-year-old girl who, through a series of pacifications, successfully hypnotized five animals in just a few minutes: puppies, crocodiles, frogs, chickens and rabbits. The little girl became popular because of the hypnosis dafa, and a year later, she brought more animals to the stage, hypnotizing them again with the phrase "sleep, sleep".
▲ In the show, the little girl is "hypnotizing" a crocodile. Photo: CCTV "Challenging the Impossible"
The audience may not know, but the host, the little girl and the backstage choreographer should all know what this is all about. Although they talk about deep sleep, these animals are not actually sleeping, but are in a state of suspended animation. Suspended animation is a defensive strategy of animals, and when facing an opponent who can neither fight nor run, suspended animation is the last choice. Suspended death is not uncommon in the animal kingdom, and many species in mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects have mastered this "deception", which is a stressful act in response to external stimuli. When the animals are ready to enter the suspended state, they will fall directly as if they have been punctured, and their whole body is stiff, and some insects even fall directly from a high place. Animals in suspended animation not only do not respond to external stimuli, but also slow down the rate of respiration and reduce metabolism. However, most of these seemingly paralyzed guys are sober-minded, and if the hunters slowly walk away at this time, they will also see the timing and turn over and escape.
▲ The Bermeister leaf frog pretending to be dead. Figure/Wikipedia
North American possums are called the Oscar-winning actors in the suspended animation world, and when they are chased to the end, they will fall to the ground like "touching porcelain" in an instant, with their eyes closed and their legs closed, their mouths slightly open, and their tongues crooked to the side. In order to achieve a more realistic effect, it will also start from the sense of smell, the gland near its anus can secrete a kind of mucus, the smell is like the smell of corpses after a few days and nights of death, making predators "smell" and deter. The North American possum also showed a show in the movie "Ice Age" with exaggerated acting skills.
▲ Fake possum in film and television works. Photo: Ice Age
▲Possum in real life suspended. Figure/Wikipedia
Suspended animation is a gamble of life, sometimes effective, sometimes a trap. When chased by felines, suspended animation is a trick, and felines have a strong interest in active things and tend to be dismissive of stationary objects. Cockroaches will fake death when they are toyed with by cats, and cats also eat this set, and it is tired of playing twice, otherwise, even if it does not eat, it will play with cockroaches for a long time. Sharks' fake death tactics are not only ineffective in front of killer whales, but also become a tool for killer whales to attack sharks. Sharks such as whitetip sharks and lemon sharks will enter a state of suspended animation after the body is turned over, and the time is even as long as 15 minutes, when the killer whale attacks these sharks, it will first hit it from the side and make it turn over, and then swallow the stationary shark alive.
Killer whales attack sharks that are suspended to death. Graph/Network
In nature, suspended animation is not only an escape skill, but also used by some animals to attack. The snapper attracts the scavenger's attention by lying on its side at the bottom of the river, giving it a spotted color that doesn't appear until after death. If a scavenger is deceived, it immediately rolls over and kills back. Using the mechanism of animal suspended animation, you can easily "hypnotize" them. When "hypnotizing" the chicken, you need to gently stroke the bottom of the chicken's neck, then slowly put it on the ground, press its head to let it stick to the ground, and when the chicken is motionless, it means that it is suspended. There are some videos on the Internet that draw straight lines in front of chickens to hypnotize, in fact, drawing straight lines is a blindfold, and painting or not painting is the same. For example, you can stroke a rabbit's head, then quickly flip it over and gently touch its ears so that the rabbit will enter a state of suspended animation.
However, suspended animation is a stress response after all, and animals are often in a state of high fear and tension when they are suspended. So, if you keep "hypnotizing" them in this way, they may be really dead and scared to death by you!
Hide and seek with you
Many popular science books have a column that shows you a picture and tells you that there are animals in it, but you are often difficult to find. For example, the owl below is almost integrated with the trees, and its visual deception technique is called mimicry.
▲ Can you find the two owls in the picture? Figure/Wikipedia
The act of a creature that simulates another organism, or simulates other objects in the environment, thereby obtaining benefits, is mimicry. The mimetic behavior of many animals is well known, such as stick insects imitating branches, dead leaf butterflies imitating dead leaves, and chameleon discoloration, etc., which are animals' imitation of the environment.
▲ Stick insects walking on trees. Figure/Wikipedia
Animals have to change their hair in different colors in different seasons, which is also a mimicry of the environment. Arctic foxes in the Arctic, snow rabbits in Northern Europe, ferrets in the northeast, rock thunderbirds in Xinjiang, snow owls, etc., will change into white winter clothes in winter. They do this either to hide from predators or to hide themselves to improve their chances of success.
▲ In winter, the snow owl is replaced by a snow-white feather. Photo/Visual China
In addition to the above mimicry of the environment, mutual imitation of animals is also very common. Sometimes, some harmless species evolve into the appearance of harmful species, which is the most common form of mimesis in nature, known as Bayesian mimicry.
▲ A fly uses Bee's mimesis to imitate a bee that can sting people. Photo/ WIkipedia
The so-called harmful, it may be poisonous, such as lifting the tail to imitate the scorpion; it may also be aggressive, such as the larvae of the prototype citrus butterfly of the green caterpillar in the Pokemon, which will disguise itself as a snake to protect itself, and it has a red stink gland on the top of its head, which will extend to simulate the effect of snake spitting out letters in times of danger, and can also secrete an unpleasant smell to drive away enemies.
▲ The green caterpillar in Pokemon, a pair of "horns" on its head is its stink gland that imitates the snake letter (tongue). Graph/Network
Some animals, perhaps because Ofe mimicked into the gods, even imitated their habits. There is a type called the black-footed ant spider, which, when mimicking aggressive black ants, even gathers many of them together to mimic the way ants gather.
Sometimes, several species with warning colors "imitate" each other, known as M Moser mimicry. It sounds strange, if they are all poisonous, why do they need to imitate each other? We take butterflies of the glazed butterfly subfamily as an example, they are all poisonous, but none of them are fatal, so they need to be poisoned by predators many times to form a conditioned reflex. We assume that predators need to eat 5 butterflies to remember this lesson, if these butterflies do not look similar, then predators will have to eat 5 of each to give up the food of this family, but if they use M Moser mimicry, the entire subfamily only needs to lose 5 to protect the whole.
▲ Butterflies of the glazed butterfly subfamily, typical of M Moser mimicry. Figure/Wikipedia
True masters of disguise, both able to mimic the environment and can mimic animals. There is a kind of octopus, the name is directly called mimetic octopus, it is such a master. Like most octopuses, mimetic octopuses are able to blend in with their environment by changing their body color, but more importantly, they can simulate the behavior of up to 15 marine animals by changing their color and appearance. It can fold up all its antennae to make itself a teardrop-shaped plane to mimic a poisonous flounder; it can also change its body color to black and white stripes, deliberately dragging a tentacle behind to simulate a poisonous sea snake. Although sometimes, these imitations are slightly clumsy, but the few seconds that predators see it and are stunned are enough to imitate the octopus and run away.
▲ Octopus is a highly poisonous lionfish in the mimic. Photo/Visual China
Mimesis can be used not only for offense and defense, but also for reproduction. The behavior called nest parasitism, which we are familiar with, is also a kind of mimesis, which is called Westman's mimesis. The color of the cuckoo egg mimics the host's egg, so it is not easy to be discovered. The Vader bird, which also has nest parasitic behavior, has a beak shape, feeding song, head movements, and coat color that resembles the host's young birds, leaving its adoptive parents in the dark from beginning to end.
▲ In the two lattices above, the eggs of the cuckoo are mixed with the eggs of the reed warblers, can you see the difference? The answer is that cuckoo eggs are larger. Figure/Wikipedia
Cheating and cheating, just to survive
Even if they don't fake animation or mimicry, all kinds of animals will still do their best to play a little trick so that they can eat more and live better. After maturing, the trout has lived in the darkness of the deep sea, and the slender spines of its front dorsal fin have evolved into a lantern that will light. Because the creatures on the seabed have phototropism, the squid uses this lantern as bait, waiting for the rabbit every day, waiting for the prey to be hooked. Sometimes, for added authenticity, the trout also shakes or moves the lantern left and right to simulate the trajectory of small creatures.
▲ Killer sturgeon in the deep sea. Photo/Visual China
Animals not only "cheat" for their own benefit, but when it comes to the safety of their offspring, they "cheat" to the fullest. There is a species of warbler that protects the nest by firing a false shot. During the breeding season, the male bird will hide in the grass near the nest, once a predator approaches the nest, it will deliberately flap its wings to make a sound, and pretend that the wings are injured and cannot fly, and when the enemy is attracted by it, it suddenly takes off and escapes. When it lays its eggs on the beach, it will not only fill the hole with sand, but also run around and dig far away from the hole, making many fake "egg laying sites" so that the real nest will not be easily discovered by seabirds.
▲ Turtle nesting. Figure/Wikipedia
Compared with human counterfeit products, animals are "cheating" but to survive. So, when we see through these little tricks of theirs, we will not only not be angry at being "deceived", but also give a thumbs up to the creation of nature.
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Wen 丨 Zhang Yuchen