托福口语 Task 4

Today we're going to talk about a fascinating behavior in the animal kingdom called 'mimicry'—specifically, when animals imitate the appearance or behavior of other species to gain a survival advantage. One common form is defensive mimicry, where a harmless species evolves to look like a dangerous one to avoid predators. Let me give you two examples. First, the scarlet king snake. It is non-venomous, but it has bright red, yellow, and black bands that closely resemble the deadly coral snake. Predators learn to avoid the coral snake's warning colors, so they also avoid the king snake. Second, consider the hoverfly. These small flies have black and yellow stripes like a wasp, and they even hover in a similar way. Although they have no stinger, their resemblance tricks birds into thinking they will get stung, so the birds leave them alone. In both cases, the mimic gains protection without actually being dangerous.