The Bone Collector: Caterpillar Donning a Disguise of Dead Insect Body Parts

The newly described “Bone Collector” caterpillar species disguises itself as dead insect body parts, allowing them to live in spiders and poach their prey. This is the only caterpillar known to use such a scary camouflage or have a roommate-like spider, a carnivorous animal and a booty cannibalism.

Daniel Rubinoff At the University of Hawaii, Manoa and his colleagues discovered a caterpillar while hiking the Waianae Mountains of Oahu over 20 years ago. They were looking for other species in the same genus, Low mass tumorAlso known as the Hawaiian Fancy Case Caterpillar. “I saw this little, tiny sac covered in a bit of a bug and honestly, I didn’t know what it was,” Rubinov says. “Then we’ll get it back [to the lab]and we realize there is a bit of a caterpillar there.

Newly described species of Low mass tumor – Has not yet received the scientific name – lives in a co-neck inside the trunk of a tree, among rocks and other enclosed spaces. It is the length of its claws and feeds on insects trapped in spider nets. “Only 0.13% of all caterpillars on the planet are carnivorous,” says Rubinoff. “That’s why it’s very difficult for caterpillars to evolve to eat meat.”

Bone collectors avoid becoming the prey itself in creepy ways. Decorate the silk case with fragments of dead insects and molted exoskeletons of spiders. Before disguising it, the creature carefully sizes each body part that may contain the ant’s head, beetle’s abdomen, or fly wings.

“It’s probably the only way to survive with the spider, by covering yourself with the skin of the spider’s own shed and small pieces of past meals,” says Rubinov. This will make the caterpillars smell and taste more like garbage bags than juicy snacks for Arknido Housemates. After about 2-3 months it transforms into moth, smaller than the grain of rice.

If bone collectors are not fully accessorized, this caterpillar is also a cannibal. Researchers learned this after placing two larvae in the same cage, leading to one larger bet for smaller, weaker siblings. This is why only one bone collector is displayed per Spider Web, says Rubinoff.

Researchers have discovered only 62 of these creatures over more than 150 field studies conducted over approximately 22 years.

Genetic analysis shows that the lineage is more than 3 million years old than Oahu, meaning it was once again spreading. “Since humans arrived in places like this, we have lost many native species,” says Rubinoff. “Both we were able to find is a miracle [the bone collector]and it’s really sad that they are so restricted to this one place.