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Updated: May 10, 2025
Had this mimicry occurred in only one or two instances, it might have been passed over as a strange coincidence. But, if we proceed from a district where one Leptalis imitates an Ithomia, another mocking and mocked species, belonging to the same two genera, equally close in their resemblance, may be found.
In the same district in which a species of Leptalis closely imitates an Ithomia, there are sometimes other Lepidoptera mimicking the same Ithomia: so that in the same place, species of three genera of butterflies and even a moth are found all closely resembling a butterfly belonging to a fourth genus.
Bates may almost be said to have actually witnessed the process by which the mimickers have come so closely to resemble the mimicked; for he found that some of the forms of Leptalis which mimic so many other butterflies, varied in an extreme degree. In one district several varieties occurred, and of these one alone resembled, to a certain extent, the common Ithomia of the same district.
In another district there were two or three varieties, one of which was much commoner than the others, and this closely mocked another form of Ithomia. From facts of this nature, Mr.
This excellent observer has shown that in some districts of South America, where, for instance, an Ithomia abounds in gaudy swarms, another butterfly, namely, a Leptalis, is often found mingled in the same flock; and the latter so closely resembles the Ithomia in every shade and stripe of colour, and even in the shape of its wings, that Mr.
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