LEAF beetles disguise themselves as the bite marks they make on leaves while eating.
While many insects hide by mimicking objects like twigs, this is the first case of feeding damage being used as a decoy.
Fredric Vencl at Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues struggled to pick out leaf beetles on heavily chewed leaves, and decided to investigate.
Advertisement
They analysed photos of 119 species of leaf beetle alongside the size, shape and colour of their bite patterns. Most species resembled their own bite marks (Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, ). This trait was widespread in the leaf beetle group, hinting that it has evolved independently several times.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淏eetle nibbles act as camouflage鈥�