How's this for a way to infiltrate high society? Did you know that caterpillars of the endangered Rebel's Large Blue butterfly (a European, not UK species) get themselves 'adopted' and then treated like royalty by ant colonies?
The butterfly lays her eggs on a gentian plant, but once hatched, the caterpillars use chemical mimicry to trick worker ants into taking them back to their colony. There, they switch strategy, and make distinctive sounds that mimic those of the queen ant. It's this that persuades the workers to look after them - feeding and cleaning them in preference even to ant larvae.
Read more...
Planet Earth Online magazine
Science Now article (free until 6 March)
Read the abstract of the research paper or the press release from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
An international team from the University of Turin (Italy), the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UK), and the University of Oxford (UK) carried out this research, which was published in the journal Science.
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