The Very Hungry Caterpillar
August 22, 2012 6 Comments
Feed me!
Spodoptera eridania (southern armyworm) | reared from lab colony on soybean
Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012
Ted C. MacRae is a research entomologist by vocation and beetle taxonomist by avocation. Areas of expertise in the latter include worldwide jewel beetles (Buprestidae) and North American longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae). More recent work has focused on North American tiger beetles (Cicindelidae) and their distribution, ecology, and conservation.
6 Responses to The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Commentaria
…an inordinate fondness for beetles!
It seems therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life!--Charles Darwin
I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capture of rare beetles.--Charles Darwin
The Creator, if He exists, must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.--J. B. S. Haldane
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Are those ocelli just back of the mandibles, or is this caterpillar entirely blind?
Yes, those are ocelli. They don’t do much other than detect light/dark and movement—certainly not able to make out images to any degree.
Ocelli, rather than the larval precursors of the compound eyes?
To be entirely correct, the “ocelli” of larval lepidopterans are more properly called stemmata and are, like most of the caterpillar body, “throw away” structures that are broken down during pupation. The resulting “soup” provides raw material for the imaginal discs, from which all adult body structures (incl. compound eyes) are built.
Love!