They wear their old heads, because they don't have access to dead salmon.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Ah, the old Lemmy metaaroo!
Stupid caterpillar ... it thinks wearing fancy head gear make it look sexier, more important or significant ... what dumb animal would do that?
Stupid sexy caterpillar!
Taking off their molted head like it's wearing nothing at all ... (caterpillar booty shake) .... like nothing at all!
That doesn’t make sense, caterpillars don’t mate. So why have a display like this? Or does this scare off predators somehow?
But why undertake this elaborate millinery? One study published in 2016 investigated this question by holding trials involving the caterpillars and their natural predators — spiders and stink bugs. The researchers found that attacks on larvae with a stack of headcases took more than 10 times longer than attacks on larvae that had had their stack removed. They found that the empty head capsules acted as a false target for predators and could also be used to deflect the piercing rostrum of a predator.
That was my first guess, false target. Like a lizard that loses the tail, only less involved. Evolution ends up with odd solutions, but if it helps favor a trait by leading to survival, it's good enough. It could have just as easily been as someone else suggested, something that was passed on but not selected against either. Not all evolved things have to do with survival, some just are there.
Oh really cool, thank you!
Put a stack of decaying skin on your head and see how appetizing you look to predators
Yeah, fair. Maybe it’s just like that lizard that squirts blood out of its eyes and predators just go “EESH WTF”
Maybe it does nothing and evolution just never selected against it.
It’s possible. Seems like it would at least change visibility to predators though. Or make it harder for the caterpillar to hide. Interesting!
What do you do with your old faces?
here in Atlanta we had a kids puppet show - the Mad Hatterpillar - about it