Some arachnids go to extraordinary lengths to mimic the appearance and behavior of ants
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Imposters abound in the animal kingdom. Peruse any textbook description of mimicry—in which one species evolves to resemble another—and you will encounter various classic examples, such as the king snake, which copies the coral snake, or the hoverfly, which masquerades as a bee. Less familiar, but in many ways even more fascinating, are the mimics in a genus of jumping spider known as , which look for all the world like ants.
Unlike other jumping spiders, with their furry, round bodies, species have smooth, elongate bodies that give the appearance of having the three distinct parts—head, thorax and abdomen—of ants, despite having just two. To complete the charade, the spiders walk on their three rear pairs of legs and raise the fourth pair overhead, waving them around to simulate ant antennae. They even adopt ants' characteristically fast, erratic, nonstop mode of locomotion in place of the stop-and-go movements other jumping spiders make. It is an Oscar-worthy performance and the secret of this group's success: more than 200 species of thrive in the tropical forests of Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas. This rich diversity makes ant mimicry the most common form of mimicry. Yet it is the least known.
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