Organisms that are difficult to detect:
Crypsis is the ability of an organism to avoid observation. A cryptic animal may do this through camouflage, nocturnality, subterranean lifestyle, transparency, or mimicry.
Organisms that are difficult to distinguish:
A cryptic species complex is a group of species which satisfy the biological definition of species, that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other, but they are not morphologically distinguishable. They can, but need not be, parapatric, quite often are sympatric, and sometimes allopatric.
For animals whose existence is in doubt, see cryptozoology.
3 comments:
A woman friend and I who once decided that we were lemurs conspired on several occasions to begin a blog on items of cryptozoological interest. Had we been successful at remaining lemurs, it may have come off, however she repeatedly impressed upon me the importance of female dominance hierarchies in lemur social groups. I insisted that make-believe lemurs lack gender, but she couldn't be talked out of keeping her make-believe lemur vag (incidentally, IM, please forgive the endless anthropomorphic fallacy).
One of the most fantastic things about cephalopods is their ability to change not only the color, but the polarization of their skin. There's evidence that they communicate visually, and they're unique among all creatures in their capacity to communicate using these out-of-phase signals beyond the visible spectrum.
The she-lemur was convinced they're conspiring against us. I like to think they simply talk about things that are none of our business, or that we wouldn't be interested in anyway. It's a squid thang.
My dear habitué, that is a delightful story of interstitial conflict. I notoriously spent one winter within the half-belief that the world was under water and that I was a mermaid, with scales, gills, webbed fingers, and double eyelids. Which is to say, I am charmed by your story.
I'm likewise charmed every day. In gratitude, I would like you to meet a beautiful, and today very hairy British gentleman named Tristan Forward, depicted clutching one of my favorite books.
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