On the Use of Adaptive Resemblance Terms in Chemical Ecology

Table 1

Summarized table of adaptive resemblance terms in general biology as used in important reviews. Systems can either be considered according to what a mimic pretends to be or according to what an operator perceives. We adopted the latter view.

By an operator, the mimic is…
not detected as a discrete entity (causing no reaction)	detected as an uninteresting entity (causing no reaction)	detected as an interesting entity (causing a reaction beneficial to the mimic)	Reference(s)
Crypsis	Masquerade	Mimicry	Endler 1981 [21], 1988 [22]
Eucrypsis	Mimesis	Homotypy	Pasteur 1982^a [23]
Eucrypsis	Plant-part mimicry	Mimicry	Robinson 1981 [24]
Crypsis	Masquerade	Mimicry	Ruxton et al. 2004 [25], Ruxton 2009 [17]
Cryptic resemblance	Cryptic resemblance	Sematic resemblance	Starrett 1993 [18]
Crypsis	Masquerade	—	Stevens and Merilaita 2009^b [26]
Crypsis	Crypsis	Mimicry^c	Vane-Wright 1976 [27], 1980 [20]
Camouflage or mimesis	Camouflage or mimesis	Mimicry	Wickler 1968 [19]

—: not considered.
^aPasteur [23] uses the term “camouflage” as generic term for both eucrypsis and mimesis.
^bThe term “camouflage” is used by Stevens and Merilaita [26] to describe all forms of concealment, including crypsis and masquerade.
^cFor the imitation of inanimate objects, Vane-Wright [27] uses the expressions “decoys” or “deflective marks”.