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This heavily infested tussock moth is still very much alive but host to numerous parasitoids that feed from its non vital body parts and will result in its demise.
On Cassia (?)
Spotted on Nov 28, 2013
Submitted on Dec 1, 2013
7 Comments
I have held this caterpillar for three days and it is still not dead.
Pic# 3 shows it actively drinking water.
Indeed a really interesting behaviour. Thanks for posting that and looking into the other one.
I believe these have all survived as they are already pupated. If you imagine a species of wasp that lays only ten eggs (and therefore produces less than maximum potential offspring) but another species lay 20 eggs, the second will survive better than the first. Natural selection will blindly determine the optimum egg number, wasp size etc.
Makes one think about just how many the wasp should lay. Can they all possibly survive one a single caterpillar? Or do they just take a machine gun approach thinking that at least one will mature. Sometimes nature doesn't seem clever with resource management.
Stephen, if you consider the minute size and computing power of their brain, I doubt that they know much at all. Of course nature is seldom compassionate and usually dispassionate. If a fly or worm ate us, we would know and they wouldn't care. I don't expect that this insect feels much either.
I've seen many of these, and they always break my heart.
Nature is intense sometimes. Gotta wonder if the caterpillar knows. Good find.