Cinereous Mourner

Cinereous Mourner is one of many birds found in the subtropical lowland forests of South America, the species lives in an area where birds tend to suffer very high losses to nest predators. The cinereous mourner, however, has a handy trick up its wing. It does a rollicking (rolling, actually) sendup of a toxic, spiny caterpillar (Megalopyge) that also calls the area home. The cinereous mourner assumes a particularly clever form of the art known as Batesian mimicry. In this form of biological trickery, the docile organism takes on the characteristics of a threatening or dangerous organism, thereby making itself highly unattractive to prospective predators.