The new carnivorous caterpillars, wearing prey ruins, are known as “bone collectors.”
Insects are only found on Oahu Island, Hawaii. It creeps up along the spider web, feeding trapped insects, and adorning its silk case with its body parts.
In a survey released Thursday in Journal Science, researchers said caterpillars “lover boasts an unprecedented, eerie practice of decorating cell phone larvae homes with prey parts that exist in the body parts of the spider prey.”
There are other meat-eating caterpillars who “do a lot of crazy things, but this one takes cake.”
AP
Scientists believe this case could act as a camouflage, allowing Caterpillar to east feast a meal of the spider’s allies without being arrested.
“The Bone Collector” was the name of Jeffrey Deaver’s 1997 crime novel and subsequent films in 1999, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.
“I think the term is in ether and it fits exactly what these caterpillars do. Arthropods don’t actually have bones, so they have a bit of a tongue on their cheek,” Rubinoff told Reuters.
Many caterpillars native to Hawaii use silk glands to rotate protective cases where lichen, sand and other materials are applied. This was the first to use an ant head and flying wings.
“It’s a truly surprising type of case,” said Stephen Montgomery, a Hawaiian entomology consultant who wasn’t involved in the new research.
Scientists have discovered only 62 of the carnivorous caterpillars in more than 20 years of observation.
Predatory caterpillars are extremely rare, and bone collectors found in Hawaii will even eat each other, researchers said.
The origins of bone collectors date back at least 6 million years ago, with caterpillars more than a million years older than the Hawaiian islands. Today they live in isolated patches of mountain forests along with invasive species.
The spider is “limited to 15km of the 15-square kilometres of the Single Mountain Range on Oahu, meaning that other members of the lineage have disappeared from the old island,” the scientists write.
Scientists have urged conservation efforts to save their own lineage.
“There’s really a concern that we need to do better with conservation,” Rubinov said.
AP 
