''Cosmophasis'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...
of
spider
Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species d ...
s in the family
Salticidae
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spi ...
(jumping spiders). They are predominantly
Southeast Asian
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, while some species occur in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Australia. Although most species more or less
mimic ants, there are also colorful species
[Jerzy Proszynski]
''Cosmophasis''
/ref> that follow a different strategy.
''C. bitaeniata'' uses chemical mimicry
Chemical mimicry (also referred to as molecular mimicry) is a type of biological mimicry, involving the use of chemicals to dupe an operator. A chemical mimic dupes an operator (e.g. a predator) by showing an adaptive chemical resemblance to an obj ...
to be accepted by the aggressive weaver ant species ''Oecophylla smaragdina
''Oecophylla smaragdina'' (common names include Asian weaver ant, weaver ant, green ant, green tree ant, semut rangrang, semut kerangga, and orange gaster) is a species of arboreal ant found in tropical Asia and Australia. These ants form colon ...
''.