Been wanting to work on this species of mine lately. I wasn't very fond of the creature I originally designed that's mimicked by the tail. Just wasn't a fan of it anymore. May revamp it and so the concept doesn't go to waste.
Anyways, here's a revamp of the tail design for this species. For mimicry to work, the mimic must always look like the thing being mimicked, so now the tails of this species always has to be grey/white (made it a neutral color so it can work w/ most palettes). It makes a lot more sense, I think. And now the creature being mimicked is a serpent of sorts. It's a very poisonous creature, so every animal avoids it when they see it. I wanted to make the tail closely resemble the creature, but it's not perfect, of course. The real creature has real eyes that usually has a shine because lighting, while the fake is plain black. The tail is also a lil' fluffy, while the real thing has a smooth texture of sorts (best to think of it as a land eel and not a snake, haha).
Since this species is pretty colorful and that tends to make them stick out, they'll hide in all sorts of crevices and make their tail stick out. It's also not uncommon to see them use camouflage in the form of covering themselves in all kinds of foliage and dirt. Usually, the tail works pretty well in doing its job. Predators from far away will see it, and just back off. It's pretty convincing, though it won't fool a keen eye (or if someone sees the other end of the tail). Since the serpent thing is known to be aggressive and deadly (one bite is enough to kill usually), no one wants to take their chances upon seeing one.
Now that I've gotten somewhere with this species, I'll probably start making adoptables at my adoption center. First adopt will probs be a species naming comp because I still cannot find a name for these things.