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Dancing Caterpillars
Amateur photographer Desmond Cannon of Brae, Ireland caught these sawfly caterpillars eating through a leaf while sticking their rear ends in the air! He shot pictures of the tiny (less than a centimeter long) caterpillars as they ate through the leaf while holding their chorus line pose.
Geoff Read, head of reptiles and inverterbrae at Marwell Wildlife, near Winchester, Hants, said the behaviour was perculiar to sawfly larvae.
He said: “It is a defence mechanism. If you go too near them they rear up like this to try and scare off predators.
“It is only this family of caterpillars that do this – it’s incredible to see.”
(image credit: Desmond Cannon)
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