It was monsoon... June end, 2013. We were in Coorg for macro photography. During a morning walk, we saw a really huge caterpillar munching a leaf. It was almost 12 Cm in length. We spent sometime there observing the beautiful green creature finishing off all the leaves in the branch, in a speed beyond we could imagine. It was an eating machine.
It was green in colour, with "S" shaped blue and yellow stripes in the body. It had a prickly horn like single projection in its tail.
By mistake, one of us touched the plant, and the caterpillar got to know that it is being watched.
Suddenly it changed it's posture. The head freed from the munching leaf, facing upwards and folding all its tiny legs towards its face, as if like praying.
It was looking cute, but I couldn't interpret the meaning then. I thought, it is trying to convey to us, "go away".
Death's-head Hawkmoth got its name because, this massive hawk moth has the spooky image of a skull on its thorax, and its horizontally banded body reminds us of the ribs of a human skeleton. Add to this fact that the death's head hawk moth can squeak when alarmed and that its huge caterpillar can make clicking sounds.
This is a defensive/camouflage posture to make the caterpillar looks less like food to hungry predators. When disturbed, late instar hawkmoth caterpillars puts them in a good position to employ another defensive response: clicking and puking sometimes.
 |
| The Defensive Posture |
 |
| Eating machine |
For more details, refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acherontia_lachesis
No comments:
Post a Comment