Threat Display
Deimatic behaviour in animals means any pattern of threatening or startling behaviour, such as suddenly displaying conspicuous eyespots, so as to scare off or momentarily distract a predator, thus giving the prey animal an opportunity to escape.
Deimatic, dymantic or threat displays occur in widely separated groups of animals, including moths, butterflies, mantises and phasmids among the insects. In the cephalopods, different species of octopuses, squids, cuttlefish and the paper nautilus are deimatic. Vertebrates including several species of frog put on warning displays; some of these species have poison glands. Among the mammals, deimatic displays are found in species with strong defences, such as skunks and porcupines. Such displays are often combined with warning coloration. Displays are classified as deimatic or aposematic by the responses of the animals that see them. Where predators are initially startled but learn to eat the displaying prey, the display is classed as deimatic, and the prey is bluffing; where they continue to avoid the prey after tasting it, the display is taken as aposematic, meaning the prey is genuinely distasteful.
Read more about Threat Display: In Insects, In Arachnids, In Cephalopods, In Vertebrates, Deimatic or Aposematic?, See Also, Bibliography
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