Mimicry is a common survival strategy in nature. Certain flies have the black and yellow stripes of a bee, which discourages potential predators, but the mimic octopus is the first known species to mimic more than one other species, and the first of its kind to possess the ability of mimicry. It is not known how many animals the mimic octopus can imitate, but it is known that most of the animals that it mimics are poisonous. Some of the more common animals the mimic octopus imitates are the following: lion fish, sea snake, flat fish, and jellyfish.