Hanekom Family in Wellington New Zealand
Autotomy (from the Greek auto- “self-” and tome “severing”) or self amputation is the observed behaviour where an animal discards one or more of its own appendages.
This is usually done as a self-defense mechanism. The lost body part may be regenerated later. The best known example is most probably the gecko’s tail.
Under natural conditions, orb-weaving spiders undergo autotomy if they are stung in a leg by wasps or bees.
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A number of animals do not camouflage themselves, but copy the bright colours of a dangerous one, a strategy called Batesian mimicry.
This harmless milk snake for example looks much like the very dangerous coral snake.
There are a number of little rhymes to differentiate based on the colour bands, like this one:
Red follows black – friend of Jack
Red follows yellow – dangerous fellow.
Did I mention it only holds true for North American snakes? (Do check place of birth before getting too friendly.)
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… deterring biting flies.
The purpose of the black and white stripes on zebra has been the subject of some speculation. One suggestion is that stripes make it difficult for predators to single out an individual zebra from the herd, but experimental evidence to support that and other ideas has been lacking.
Turns out bloodsucking horseflies and tsetse flies who do not only deliver nasty bites but also carry dangerous germs find zebra stripes less attractive than uniform colouration.
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Locusts / grasshoppers of the order Phymateus eat poisonous plants like the milkweed and store the poisons in their bodies to deter their predators.
There are a number of species and subspecies with a variety of colours. This image is of the common milkweed locust (Phymateus morbillosus).
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