Defensive Mimicry
These familiar bright yellow “Traffic Bollards” are typically four-inch steel pipe, often filled with concrete, embedded in the ground about three and a half feet. They are positioned wherever a carelessly driven car might do harm to something at the roadside: a US Postbox, for example. You must seriously avoid running into one.
So I thought!
Look closely at this bunch of imposters. Zoom in on the tops and you will see that they are just hollow plastic tubes with the distinctive color and domed top that have been slipped over a typical street sign post.
In nature, this is called “Defensive Mimicry”. For example, many completely non-poisonous snakes have a coloration that looks exactly like a seriously poisonous snake to keep from being bothered.
I am so blogging this.
Stay alert! Paw, Bob, Robbie
(Editor e.g. The caterpillar of the sphinx hawk moth, photographed here in Peru, mimics a venomous snake to scare predators away.)
