214 



ANIMAL LIFE 



Monarch butterfly is a good example of the possession of 

 warning colors by distasteful caterpillars. 



These warning colors are possessed not only by the ill- 

 tasting caterpillars, but by many animals which have spe- 

 cial means of defense. The wasps and bees, provided with 

 stings dangerous animals to trouble are almost all con- 

 spicuously marked with yellow and black. The lady-bird 

 beetles (Fig. 136), composing a whole family of small beetles 



A 



W 



FIG. 136. Two lady-bird beetles, conspicuously colored and marked. 



which are all ill-tasting, are brightly and conspicuously col- 

 ored and spotted. The Gila monster (Heloderma),ihe only 

 poisonous lizard, differs from most other lizards in being 

 strikingly patterned with black and brown. Some of the 

 venomous snakes are conspicuously colored, as the coral 

 snakes (Elaps) or coralillos of the tropics. The naturalist 

 Belt, whose observations in Nicaragua have added much to 

 our knowledge of tropical animals, describes as follows an 

 interesting example of warning colors in a species of frog : 

 "In the woods around Santo Domingo (Nicaragua) there 

 are many frogs. Some are green or brown and imitate 

 green or dead leaves, and live among foliage. Others are 

 dull earth-colored, and hide in holes or under logs. All 

 these come out only at night to feed, and they are all 

 preyed upon by snakes and birds. In contrast with these 

 obscurely colored species, another little frog hops about in 



