914 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 
Fia. 136.—Two lady-bird bectles, conspicuously colored and marked. 
which are all ill-tasting, are brightly and conspicuously col- 
ored and spotted. The Gila monster (Heloderma), the 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 (Zaps) 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 
