| Sneaky
caterpillar makes an ant’s perfume
A butterfly
caterpillar that tricks ants into taking care of it may make its own ant
scent instead of just borrowing ant odors as camouflage.
References:
Akino, T., . . .
J.A. Thomas, and G.W. Elmes. 1999. Chemical mimicry and host
specificity in the butterfly Maculinea rebeli, a social
parasite of Myrmica ant colonies. Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London B 266(July 22):1419.
Further Readings:
A Web site
offering acoustical "calls" of caterpillars and a comparison
of caterpillar sounds is available at http://biology.uoregon.edu/Biology_WWW/People/DeVries/calls.html
Sources:
Graham W. Elmes
Furzebrook Research Station
Institute of Terrestrial Ecology
Wareham
Dorset BH20 5AS
United Kingdom
Konrad Fiedler
Universität Bayreuth
Lehrstuhl Tierökologie
95440 Bayreuth
Germany
David Lohman
Harvard University
Pierce Laboratory
MCZL 26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
From Science
News, Vol. 156, No. 4, July 24, 1999, p. 53. Copyright © 1999,
Science Service. |