back on the history of the species and conclude that the dissolution
and degeneration of the eye-spot began at the time when the leaf
resemblance was evolved, and this was probably caused by some change of
habitat, which we can now no longer guess at.
Many species of leaf-like Orthoptera, both in the Old and New World,
have tough, green, parchment-like wing-covers which bear a remarkable
resemblance to the thick Magnolia-like leaves of tropical plants. Along
with these we must also mention the 'walking leaf,' which has been well
known for centuries. In its case, not the wing-covers alone, but the
head and thorax, and even the legs, are of the colour and shape of a
leaf.
The stick-insects, too, must not remain unnoticed; those quaint
inhabitants of warm countries, whose elongated brown body looks like a
knotted twig, and whose long legs, likewise stick-like, are stretched
out irregularly at different angles to the body, and usually remain
motionless when the insect is resting. These creatures are vegetarian,
and generally keep so still, that even the naturalist who is on the
look-out for them may easily overlook them. Even such an experienced
student of insects as Alfred Russel Wallace was deceived, for a native
of the Phillipines once brought him a specimen as a 'walking-stick'
insect, which he rejected, saying that this time it was no animal
but really a twig, until the native showed him that it was an insect
whose likeness to a twig was increased by the fact that it bore on
its back a ragged green growth, which looked exactly like a liverwort
(_Jungermannia_), which occurs on the twigs of the trees in that region.
We must also notice here the thorn-bugs, which are numerous on the
prickly shrubs of tropical deserts and plateaux, especially in Mexico.
These bear on the relatively very small body two or three large spines,
which make them look like a part of the thorny bush on which they sit.
But this masking by mimicry of thorns is not confined to insects, it is
seen in lizards as well, notably in _Moloch horridus_, a lizard that
lives in the Australian bush, and is covered all over with thorn-like
scales.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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