Entomologists sometimes see caterpillars clumping together, but the reason for this behaviour has defied explanation.
Researchers had proposed that the aggregations conserved water or energy, but John Terblanche of Stellenbosch University in South Africa and his colleagues have dispatched those ideas. They collected Cape Lappet moth caterpillars (Eutricha capensis) and reared them as individuals and in groups of up to 100. Metabolic rates and water use did not decrease with group size.
Given that aggregating caterpillars did not conserve energy, the researchers suggest that the behaviour may confer other advantages, such as faster growth rates or safety in numbers.
J. Exp. Biol. http://doi.org/npp (2013)
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Clumping caterpillars. Nature 501, 138 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/501138a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/501138a
