Plant Mimicry in Nature: The Mimic, The Model and The Fool

In biology, plant mimicry occurs when a plant has evolved to resemble another organism, increasing the mimic's Darwinian fitness. Mimicry may provide the mimic certain benefits including protection against being eaten, trick pollinators into provide them a service without offering a reward (food) in return, or may even do something we haven't figured out yet.

In The Good The Bad The News

Amber hates snow, Jennifer thinks it is beautiful, but you know what Jennifer hates? Nurdles. Those tiny plastic pellets that are spilled into the ocean, just like oil, and cause just as much damage. Over 230,000 tonnes of nurdles end up in oceans every year. Not good.

Most Americans would be fine without turkey at Thanksgiving dinner, and Jennifer and Amber agree that this would be fine. The UK government has declared that lobsters, crabs, octopuses and related species will be included under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, which is Good news for animal rights.

In plant mimicry there are always three things, the mimicker, the model, and then the third thing, which is the thing being duped by the mimic. Sometimes the fool is actually humans. Mimics walk a fine balance between being an evolutionary advantage and being an evolutionary dead end.

There are many different examples of plant mimicry in the wild, each more interesting than the last. Vines that might borrow host DNA, hooker lips, bee flowers, and trickster rye plants just to name a few.

Listen now to learn about plants that pretend to be something they aren’t.

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