Spittlebug Polymorphic for Warning Coloration

Abstract

LINDROTH¹ suggests that some insects gain a selective advantage by mimicking other insects whose striking colour patterns serve to warn potential predators of an unusually effective escape mechanism. The mimicked insects hop suddenly when disturbed, greatly lessening the probability of a predator's success. A learning predator comes to associate particular colour patterns with wasted effort and spurns both the model and the relatively sluggish mimic, so long as encounters with the model substantially outnumber those with the mimic. Lindroth's hypothesis may help explain cases of apparently aposematic (warning) coloration in non-mimetic animals which are neither poisonous, distasteful, nor formidably outfitted for defence, but which possess efficient close quarter escape mechanisms². I propose that the phenomenon of escape warning coloration may be an important factor in the colour polymorphism of Philaenus spumarius (L.), the common meadow spittlebug.