"Caillois, regards mimesis as a perennial instinct of all life forms, one that does not essentially differ in insects, animals, and in humans. In ‘Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia’ (1935), he seeks to explain the strange fact that many insect species have evolved to mimic their surroundings. Although most studies of this phenomenon see mimicry as an offensive or defensive adaptation, a way of surprising prey or tricking predators, Caillois approaches it as part of a more primal relationship between the organism and its surroundings. As Caillois notes, some examples of mimicry lack obvious advantages for survival. Many of the predators from whom mimetic insects try to hide hunt by smell and not by sight, so visual mimicry does not provide much protection from them. Other mimetic adaptations do not seem to be functional at all. Some mimetic species are inedible and therefore have nothing to fear from predators. In other cases mimesis is even suicidal, as with certain insects that forage among the leaves they imitate and can mistakenly eat others of their own species." (in Potolsky, 2006: 142).
