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RE: Con artists among the ants: deceptive beetles and convergent evolution
Great post. Actually some humans are myrmecophile, but those beetles are not, as they just exploit the resources of the ants and weaken them. But if really the distribution of beetle and ants is 1:5000 only, then it is not that bad I guess.
And great example of convergent evolution indeed. Just one has to take care that not the fact that the beetle looks like the ant is convergent evolution (this is mimikry rather), but the fact that 12 different beetle species had "invented" the same approach independently.
Thank you for reading. Technically, the humans are myrmecologists and the beetles are myrmecophiles, but language doesn't always make sense and we are stuck with it. :) Good point about convergent evolution.