Biological mimesis pertains usually to the translation of a natural form or mechanism into an engineering design. Mimesis however can also apply to the design process itself as one may employ the principles of natural evolution to the optimization of engineering problems. As an exemplary case study for this approach, we present the application of an Evolutionary Strategy to the optimization of anguilliform swimming. This investigation uses three-dimensional simulations of the flow past a self-propelled body. The motion of the body is not specified a priori but is instead the result of a reverse engineering process. This procedure helps us identify systematically the links between swimming kinematics and biological function. Three distinct objectives are considered: the swimming efficiency, the burst swimming speed, and the acoutic far field signature. We focus on the acoustic and dynamic features, and in particular, we extract phaseshift information for motion controllers..