0000000001314621

AUTHOR

Keith R. Willmott

S1. Detailed protocol description from Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry are Adelpha butterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naïve blue tits to learn to avoid and generalize Adelpha wing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with dist…

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S2. Frequency of prey attacked in the generalisation test for each experimental group from Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

We present the attack counts on each type of prey during the generalisation test

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S3. Generalisation tests: Likelihood model, scenarios investigated and results from Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Detailed description of the different scenarios investigated for the generalisation test. Full results from the likelihood models are included as well.

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S5.Comparison between first trial's attack rate and attacks rate during generalisation test from Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry are Adelpha butterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naïve blue tits to learn to avoid and generalize Adelpha wing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with dist…

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Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry areAdelphabutterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalizeAdelphawing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distast…

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S4. Learning experiment video from Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Video of a single trial from learning experiment procedure when defended prey was evasive.

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