A complex mode of aggressive mimicry in a scale-eating cichlid fish

作者：Boileau Nicolas; Cortesi Fabio; Egger Bernd; Muschick Moritz; Indermaur Adrian; Theis Anya; Buescher Heinz H; Salzburger Walter^*

来源：Biology Letters, 2015, 11(9): 20150521.

DOI：10.1098/rsbl.2015.0521

• aggressive mimicry
• lepidophagy
• molecular diet analysis
• colour vision
• Plecodus straeleni
• Lake Tanganyika

Aggressive mimicry is an adaptive tactic of parasitic or predatory species that closely resemble inoffensive models in order to increase fitness via predatory gains. Although similarity of distantly related species is often intuitively implicated with mimicry, the exact mechanisms and evolutionary causes remain elusive in many cases. Here, we report a complex aggressive mimicry strategy in Plecodus straeleni, a scale-eating cichlid fish from Lake Tanganyika, which imitates two other cichlid species. Employing targeted sequencing on ingested scales, we show that P. straeleni does not preferentially parasitize its models but-contrary to prevailing assumptions-targets a variety of co-occurring dissimilar looking fish species. Combined with tests for visual resemblance and visual modelling from a prey perspective, our results suggest that complex interactions among different cichlid species are involved in this mimicry system.

• 出版日期2015-9-1