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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15 Most Alien Looking Caterpillars on Earth
Caterpillars are more vulnerable to predators than their later butterfly stage, so many have developed scary appearances for protection. These can scare anyone!
This green alien is a native of the Philippines and seems to have taken the fake eye spots to an extreme, making its “face” quite large and scary. Normally, a caterpillar’s face is much smaller and not on the second abdominal segment.
(image credit: Flickr user Thrillseekr)
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Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite: Cotesia glomerata
Every week, Christie Lynn of Observation of a Nerd blog features a post about a hair raising parasite worthy of a science fiction (or perhaps better yet, horror) movie.
This particular one is about a caterpillar being eaten from inside after being infected with a parasitic wasp; make sure to see all of the other entries. And a little warning: it’s not for the faint of heart.
Cotesia glomerata, like many other parasitic wasps, targets caterpillars to host its hungry little wasps-to-be. When it finds a suitable host, it injects its eggs directly into the body cavity of the unfortunate butterfly larvae by stabbing its egg-laying, needle-like appendage called an “ovipositor” directly through the catterpillar’s skin. Inside the host, the eggs hatch and begin feeding on the inner organs to become fully grown.
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Caterpillars Warn Acoustically of Upcoming Defense
Caterpillars of the Great Peacock Moth (Saturnia pyri) are making quite a buzz. A recent study has shown that these giant silkmoth caterpillars are advertising acoustically that they are unpallatable and warn of an upcoming defense strategy.
When disturbed by a would be attacker the caterpillars stridulate by rubbing their mouth parts together, creating broadband chirps spanning from 3.7-55.1 kHz. While it is still unclear who exactly they are advertising to, a predator would be well advised to stay away from their sharp, chemical exuding bristles.
Though is not the first example of sound production in caterpillars it is a novel mechanism, paving the way for future research. (Photo: V. Bura)
Saturnia pyri chirp before or while they ooze foul-smelling droplets from their bristles. So the chirps might be a warning to attackers that there’s some serious resistance on the way, Yack and her colleagues propose online and in an upcoming Naturwissenschaften.
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A Caterpillar Operator with Mad Skillz
This is pretty impressive – but what I wonder is how many front loaders (this one is 15 tons!) he went through before he got it right. Yeah, you’re right… probably none.
Skills With A 15 Ton Front Loader – Watch more free videos
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