Mimicry in the animal world unifies the visual appearance of creatures that are sometimes very different in everything else, such as a small bird of the family Laniocera hypyrra and a poisonous caterpillar.
This case of imitation was discovered a few years ago in southeastern Peru by a team led by Gustavo Londoño, from the University of California, Riverside, US.
Those scientists who were conducting research on the ecology of birds were very amazed by the strange appearance of some of the just hatched chicks of the above species.
The chicks had velvety feathers and long orange hair ending in white tips, something Londoño and his colleagues had not seen in any other bird species in the area.
Even more surprising is the behavior of the chicks, as they slowly move their heads from side to side, a type of movement typical of many hairy caterpillars.
A chick. (Photo: Santiago David Rivera)
The mystery began to …