The selective consequences for the signal receiver of responding to the model are always positive (the reaction would disappear if, on balance, it were unfavourable to the receiver). The mimic always has a selective advantage in releasing the reaction from the receiver. An unfavourable signal by the mimic would also disappear by natural selection.

The selective consequence for the model eliciting and obtaining the reaction from the receiver may be of several types. Consequences may be absent, if the model is an inanimate object on which natural selection does not act. They may be negative, if the model is non-aposematic (non-warning), such as the tiny crustacean, usually eaten by the signal receiver and mimicked by the male Corynopoma characin in order to attract the female. Or they may instead be positive, as in the wasp, which remains alive if it is avoided by the predator; in the cleaner, which feeds on parasites harmful to other fish; or in those hymenopteran females whose male-attracting signals are mimicked by certain orchids. Mutual interest is present between model and receiver in cases of aggressive mimicry where both parties belong to the same particular species and also in typical Batesian mimicry.

Constant learning by the signal receiver results in a strong selective pressure on the mimic against detectable differences from the model, but at the same time it also exerts a complementary strong pressure on the model to develop just such new differences from the mimic. Typically, it is the group of songbirds parasitized by cuckoos that has developed the most divergent egg-colour patterns; the group of estrildine finches parasitized by whydahs that has developed particular gape patterns; and among the cleaner wrasses the species Labroides dimidiatus mimicked by the blenny Aspidontus that develops into many different local races.

There is a boomerang effect, characteristic of the parasite–host relationship, that the more successfully a bird rears young cuckoos, the more certain it is that it will lose its own young, because they are killed off by the young cuckoo. Parasites that are too successful, therefore, harm themselves, for each female cuckoo needs several nests of the same host species for her eggs. In an area that contains particularly successful cuckoos, the number of reed warbler nests has been found to decrease from year to year, while the percentage of nests parasitized by cuckoos increases from year to year. This ratio means that a cuckoo that is too well adapted reduces the availability of its own hosts, while one insufficiently adapted kills off its own offspring. Presumably, selection in both directions produces a continual oscillation in the densities of hosts and cuckoos (see also coevolutionary alternation).

A similar dilemma is inflicted on human beings, who act as predators against weeds in crop fields and by winnowing select the wanted seeds from the usually smaller weed seeds. The flax dodder (Cuscuta epilinum), for example, which grows as a creeper around flax and linseed plants and damages them, originally had small seeds that could be easily separated from the larger flax seeds. By a mutation that produced twin seeds, the dodder has evolved the capability of being separated out and planted with the desirable flax seeds. This mutant of the flax dodder is now cultivated and spread by growers, despite being against their interests. In this case, the parasite mimics the protected plant, receiving the same protection.

The effects of geographic distribution and population density

It has been postulated that the model and the mimic should always occur in the same area—i.e., be sympatric. They need not always be sympatric, however, but they must always have a signal receiver in common. A model might be in Africa, for instance, and its mimic might be in Europe (or vice versa), the two being functionally connected by a migratory bird (see also speciation).

Another postulate, that mimics must naturally be less numerous than their models, means, correctly stated, that the receiver has to meet the mimic less often than the model; this postulate is based on the assumption that one experience with the model has the same aftereffect, the same weight, as has one with the mimic. This assumption, however, has been proved not always to be so; in fact, the negative experience seems usually to be the stronger one. This negative experience may result from an encounter with the model (such as a wasp) or with the mimic (for example, the sabre-toothed blenny). There might be more wasp mimics than wasps, but in cases such as that of the cleaner wrasse mimic, the mimic probably has to be less numerous than the model. The protective power of the model, of course, is reduced with an increasing number of mimics, because the predator may eat larger numbers of them before his first encounter with the model.

The importance of mimicry to evolutionary theory

The mimicry hypothesis emerged in the middle of the Darwinian controversy and provided an ideal test case for the views of Charles Darwin and his contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace on the operation of natural selection in the evolutionary change of living organisms. It is now quite evident that the basic theory of natural selection is correct and that the theory is strengthened by many detailed studies of the process by which a mimetic resemblance is brought about and selected for. In addition, investigating suitable cases of mimicry provides important insight into the evolution of signals and the “semantization” process by which signals get their meaning.