Aposematism is a warning strategy used by animals, including wasps, spiders, snakes, and frogs, to alert others to their presence and promote avoidance. It is the opposite of crypsis, drawing attention to itself through warning coloration, shape, call, or smell. Aposematism is often supported by poison or an unpleasant taste. While the presence of defensive strategies makes aposematism more likely, it does not guarantee it. Some brightly colored animals, like wasps and the Golden Poison Frog, are dangerous, while others use Batesian mimicry to appear dangerous.
Aposematism is a strategy used by some animals to alert others to their presence and promote avoidance. This is usually in the context of the warning colouration, but the warning signal can also take the form of a shape, a call or a smell. Some examples of animals that exhibit aposematism include wasps, some dragonflies, tiger moths, black widow spiders, coral snakes, cobras, ladybugs, cuttlefish, poison dart frogs, and other assorted insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. Even some plants, such as foxgloves, employ aposematism.
Aposematism is diametrically opposed to another common evolutionary strategy, the crypt. Crypsis consists of a hiding animal, while aposematism is the opposite: it draws attention to itself. But the animal usually draws attention to itself only because it has something to support itself on: usually poison, but sometimes an unpleasant taste or poisonous meat. Being wary, predators and other animals avoid the warning. The avoidance of brightly colored animals is probably partly built into our minds from birth, due to evolutionary psychology.
While significant metabolic resources are required to evolve and maintain self-defense systems, many animals have done so. Once such a system has evolved, aposematism is one of many possible directions in which the species can travel. While many wasps are brightly colored, there are some that are not. Additionally, some animals, such as common ants, are considered aggressive and contain little nutrition, meaning only specialized predators eat them, yet many species lack warning coloration. So the presence of defensive strategies makes aposematism more likely, but does not guarantee it.
We have good reasons to be afraid of certain brightly colored animals. Some, like wasps, deliver a painful sting that can be repeated again and again. What’s worse, wasps release special enzymes that attract other wasps to keep stinging. A wasp found in Japan, the giant Japanese hornet, has a sting so powerful it has been compared to a red-hot nail driven into the arm, and it can kill. Another aposematic species, the Golden Poison Frog, is one of the most venomous animals on the planet. Its venom is so lethal that a single 2cm individual contains enough venom to kill 5 mice, 10,000 humans or two elephants.
Some animals evolve brilliant colorations through camouflage: although defenseless, they want to appear to predators as if they are somehow dangerous. This is called Batesian mimicry, and there are countless examples.
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