Camouflage
Venom
Sharp teeth / nails
The animal we are looking at today evolved to look like an adorable baby snake as a defense mechanism.
It looks completely like a snake and while it is cute to us, to other predators they would just see a snake and leave it alone for the most part.
As you can see it does not look like anything other than a small snake, just hanging out off a branch. But it is not even in the reptile family!
Here some more angles of the little guy, would it even cross your mind that it was not a real snake? It even has the body posture down pat in its imitation.
Did you guess what actually was yet? It is infact a caterpillar! Yes the kind that cocoons and turns into a butterfly or moth.
Specifically, it is the hawk-moth caterpillars defense mechanism. It extends its body and takes the shape and look of a snake. Evolution is an amazing and useful thing.
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