Living Habits of Reptiles (Last Part)

The proponents of the mimicry idea are not persuaded by these objections. They outline their case thus:
1) There is such a phenomenon as warning coloration. It is widespread among poisonous species, and occurs in animals as dissimilar as frogs, butterflies and the Gila monster. To assume that the poisonous coral snakes are not exhibiting the phenomenon is less acceptable than to say they are.
2) Although most of both the poisonous and non-poisonous candy stick snakes are indeed secretive and addicted to twilight, none is either wholly subterranean or truly nocturnal; and in any case the times when they are most in danger of being preyed upon are the interludes when they emerge to the surface, where the colour pattern would be in evidence.
3) Although some snake predators are colour blind, others are not.
4) If coral snakes get any shred of immunity from being banded with gaudy colours, then, by common sense, this immunity is being shared by the similarly marked scarlet snake and scarlet king snake of the south-eastern United States, and by the host of mimics among harmless snakes of the American tropics—at least in areas where a range is shared by a model and a mimic. That some places have “mimics” without models (parts of the United States do, for example) means simply that ranges of animals change in relatively short spaces of geologic time, while colour patterns might be expected to persist for a while after their utility has gone.
As an example, the mimicry school states: The red-shouldered hawk travels widely, and eats snakes everywhere it goes. If it is one of the predators that instinctively shuns ringed snakes because in some places catching them is dangerous, then might not the same hawk be expected to shun the same pattern in other localities, whether or not any penalty were ever imposed in those places? And so the arguments go on and on.

These are some of the most fascinating problems in the field of zoology. They are crying out to be studied experimentally, because that is the only way some of the questions involved will ever be answered. And what is worse, so long as they have not been given the glamour of experimental science they will continue to be deprecated by intelligent and otherwise sound scientists who ought to be studying them. The whole subject of deceptive simulations, including related behavioural adaptations like bluffing and playing dead, is so broad that it would merit a book to itself. In the single class, Reptilia, there are myriad examples of this one kind of adaptation. They have all come about because they impart increased ability to survive. They are signs of the reality and subtlety of the ecological bonds by which all naturally living beings are drawn into an integrated organization. They are another kind of proof that the habitat is more than a living space, and that no creature ever lives alone.

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