More Security Countermeasures from the Natural World
The plant caladium steudneriifolium pretends to be ill so mining moths won’t eat it.
She believes that the plant essentially fakes being ill, producing variegated leaves that mimic those that have already been damaged by mining moth larvae. That deters the moths from laying any further larvae on the leaves, as the insects assume the previous caterpillars have already eaten most of the leaves’ nutrients.
Cabbage aphids arm themselves with chemical bombs:
Its body carries two reactive chemicals that only mix when a predator attacks it. The injured aphid dies. But in the process, the chemicals in its body react and trigger an explosion that delivers lethal amounts of poison to the predator, saving the rest of the colony.
The dark-footed ant spider mimics an ant so that it’s not eaten by other spiders, and so it can eat spiders itself:
M.melanotarsa is a jumping spider that protects itself from predators (like other jumping spiders) by resembling an ant. Earlier this month, Ximena Nelson and Robert Jackson showed that they bolster this illusion by living in silken apartment complexes and travelling in groups, mimicking not just the bodies of ants but their social lives too.
Now Nelson and Robert are back with another side to the ant-spider’s tale – it also uses its impersonation for attack as well as defence. It also feasts on the eggs and youngsters of the very same spiders that its ant-like form protects it from. It is, essentially, a spider that looks like an ant to avoid being eaten by spiders so that it itself can eat spiders.
My previous post about security stories from the insect world.
Dom De Vitto • July 2, 2009 7:43 AM
Aha – the TSA can leverage this!
If they fill all but one plane at the airport with sky marshals dressed like terrorists, the terrorists will naturally avoid those planes, instead pack themselves into the remaining ‘terrorst-available’ plane.
Then blam, the FBI swoop in and arrest the lot.
Easy.
Hmmm, actually, considering the “dark-footed ant spider” case, it’s almost certain that the FBI would swoop on the wrong plane of fake-terrorists.
Nature’s great, but it relies on genetics (and evolution) to provide solutions. We have brains to assist with environment changes that generics can’t resolve quick enough.
Same applies to general security – firewalls triage vulnerabilities in the ‘interior colony’, protecting the high-importance internal desktops and even taking-one-for-the-team getting DoS’d, but ensuing that the interior devices aren’t impacted.
I think that security/survivability are the same thing, in different environments – threats vs countermeasures.
Hmmm, but your blog made me think, once again.