Pharyngula::Hyposmocoma molluscivora

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Hyposmocoma molluscivora

PZ Myers • 27 Comments (last page)

You're probably used to thinking of caterpillars as creatures that munch on leaves and other plant material—nice, harmless herbivores. Here's one that has a different lifestyle. Hyposmocoma molluscivora is a case-bearing moth, which means that the caterpillar spins a loose 'shell' of silk, which may also incorporate debris from its environment as camouflage or additional protection. This caterpillar crawls about, ignoring all of the plants around it, looking for snails. When it finds one, it spins out more silk, trapping it so it can't escape, and wedges its case against the snail shell. Then it crawls out of its case and pursues the snail as it withdraws into its shell, and dines on terrified escargot.

Rubinoff D, Haines WP (2005) Web-Spinning Caterpillar Stalks Snails. Science 309(5734):575

Trackback url: http://tangledbank.net/index/trackback/2617/

Comments:

#32584: Chris Clarke — 07/21 at 06:57 PM
Becky hates snails and loves caterpillars. Does the Science article contain ordering information?

If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?

#32586: — 07/21 at 07:47 PM
Too funny, Chris - I was just going to ask where I could order 5,000 or so. We had such a wet spring that I can barely lift a leaf around here without finding a snail or 20. The caterpillars wouldn't have to crawl very far to find them!

#32588: PZ Myers — 07/21 at 08:01 PM
They're Hawaiian, and have been collected on Maui and Molokai. You'll have to make a personal collecting trip.

But I shouldn't have to warn you about releasing alien species, right?

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#32602: outeast — 07/22 at 02:36 AM
Oh, (soon-to-be) Mrs Outeast has a phobia about caterpillars. This'll be right up her alley

Just a shame there's no long below-the-fold article with gory pics...

#32604: Mrs Tilton — 07/22 at 03:24 AM
Hawaiian, eh? I believe Hawaii is unusual in boasting a large number of carnivorous lepidoptera. Dogmatic Darwinists will claim this the result of countless millennia of 'evolution' on an isolated island chain. The simpler and more scientific answer, of course, is that The Designer in its divine (or space-alienish) benificence deliberately chose to put these dangerous beasts in a lovely semi-tropical paradise they would be loth ever to leave, thus preserving us from a worldwide onslaught of ravenous, slavering-mandibled caterpillars.

[Mrs Tourist: Oh look at the beautiful butterfly, dear!

Mr Tourist: Why, yes, I believe it's a Kauai Speckled Admiral. And look, it's coming towards us! It's... oh no, it's... AAARGH!]

#32607: — 07/22 at 08:22 AM
I must say, biology certainly presents plenty of hideous, terrifying ways to be eaten easily on a par with the worst of Hollywood imaginings. Imagine being that poor mollusc...

#32611: Raven — 07/22 at 08:57 AM
Well, any species name ending in -ivora kinds of gives away that there's not going to be a happy ending for somebody.

#32614: Chris Clarke — 07/22 at 09:55 AM

But I shouldn't have to warn you about releasing alien species, right?

No.

Do me a favor. Hop in that time machine you've got lying around and give that same admonition to the guy who imported escargots to California a hundred years ago.

If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?

#32615: PZ Myers — 07/22 at 09:59 AM
If I had a time machine, I'd be bopping about in the Cambrian and the Permian, not wasting time with 20th century California.

I'd be tempted to bring back trilobites, though...

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#32619: Chris Clarke — 07/22 at 10:04 AM

Well, any species name ending in -ivora kinds of gives away that there's not going to be a happy ending for somebody.

Apparently that's untrue of -ivoorus

If I had a time machine, I'd be bopping about in the Cambrian and the Permian, not wasting time with 20th century California.

That's a shame: you'd miss the chance to look at one of the most diverse no-longer-extant assemblages of Neogene invertebrates.

If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?

#32626: — 07/22 at 10:33 AM

I'd be tempted to bring back trilobites, though

You as well, eh! :-D They do seem to have a very large fan club for something which is extinct. The reality of them might not live up to the pieced together version of their appearance and behaviour though.

#32629: John Emerson — 07/22 at 10:51 AM
What does this well-fed caterpillar change into? Do they pupate after eating one snail, or do the eat more and more snails until they get huge?

#32630: — 07/22 at 10:59 AM
Shame there isn't one that eats slugs.

Having said that I'm finding it easier as I get older to live at peace with slugs, basically by not trying to grow things they most like to eat. Not an option for everyone, but it does have benefits. Always had respect for them; now can afford to admire them. Thought I'd found an unusual
snake the other day, hidden behind the compost bins, but it turned out to be a very fine Limax maximus. It was ... beautiful.

Much nicer than squid, and you can keep them in your garden too!

#32633: Raven — 07/22 at 11:25 AM

Always had respect for them; now can afford to admire them. Thought I'd found an unusual snake the other day, hidden behind the compost bins, but it turned out to be a very fine Limax maximus. It was ... beautiful. Much nicer than squid, and you can keep them in your garden too!

Glad you feel that way, Gav. Now what's your address? I need to mail you a package of some, er, things, I don't want around anymore.

#32634: — 07/22 at 11:34 AM
Okay,
I mentioned you also.
Creepy part is they eat the poor snail head first so the poor thing sees it coming. Time machine wise I vote for the Pliocene. What could be more fun than watching hominids evolve?

#32636: — 07/22 at 11:43 AM
"I must say, biology certainly presents plenty of hideous, terrifying ways to be eaten easily on a par with the worst of Hollywood imaginings."

I think predators are mostly nice; they usually find it convenient to kill the prey first.

Now, about parasites...

#32637: — 07/22 at 11:53 AM
Raven - You're just jealous because all you've got are horrible Deroceras, I'll bet. I've plenty of those thank you.

You wouldn't want to give a Limax maximus away.

#32644: — 07/22 at 12:43 PM
"terrified escargot" - that's hilarious.

I'm no snail expert but here goes: In the photo the caterpillar is dining on a cone-spiral shaped snail. As I've always understood it, this snail itself is a snail predator and not an herbivor. This is the snail you toss into your garden to hunt down the regular snails damaging your plants.

If I'm wrong, let me have it.

(Oh, and I would far rather get eaten head first so I don't have to experience my own consumption from the feet up.)

#32645: Linkmeister — 07/22 at 12:47 PM
"They're Hawaiian."

Indeed they are. Believe it or not, one of our local news stations actually spent a minute of its oh-so-precious time on the subject on the "Live! Local! Late-Breaking" news last night.

I'm sure this was an aberration for which the news director will be punished.

#32647: Linkmeister — 07/22 at 01:25 PM
Photos of the beastie from the UH insect folk.

#32677: Nullifidian — 07/23 at 03:58 AM
If I had a time machine, I'd probably stop in at the Vendian and Cambrian (maybe collecting an early trilobite for PZ) in order to grab some genetic data and settle some of the controversies of placement of fossil organisms, especially in echinoderm phylogenetics (perhaps stopping in to the Carboniferous to take the DNA of that enigmatic fossil, [URL=http://www.evolutionpages.com/Jaekelocarpus oklahomensis.htm]Jaekelocarpus oklahomensis[/URL], which was discovered from the Gene Autry formation, my favorite name of any geological formation known :-D).

Question for the creationists: how do you define a 'kind' if real scientists cannot determine which phylum a specimen belongs to?

“We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.” Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

#32680: — 07/23 at 06:04 AM
Nullifidian put a "Question for the creationists: how do you define a 'kind' if real scientists cannot determine which phylum a specimen belongs to?"

They probably don't know themselves. In the spirit of helpfulness I'd offer kind=clade.

#32686: — 07/23 at 07:45 AM
That looks for all the world like a caddisfly larvae, not a caterpillar, which I always associated with butterflies and moths. Does the article say what the common name of the adult stage is?

#32689: Ron Sullivan — 07/23 at 09:46 AM
I think the reason it looks like a caddisfly larva is that it constructs its "house" the way a caddisfly larva does.

Much nicer than squid, and you can keep them in your garden too!

Yabbut I'd bet it doesn't taste as nice, battered and fried. Call me unscientific, but I'm not willing to test that, tho'. Salt-and-pepper slug? No thanks.

#32698: John Emerson — 07/23 at 01:23 PM
Its legs and head don't seem caterpillarish to me either. I'd like to see what it mutates into.

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Hyposmocoma molluscivora

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