Hawaiian caterpillar patrols spiderwebs camouflaged in insect prey’s body parts

IF 44.7 1区综合性期刊 Q1 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES

Science Pub Date : 2025-04-24 DOI:10.1126/science.ads4243

Daniel Rubinoff, Michael San Jose, Camiel Doorenweerd

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Lepidoptera is the most herbivorous of all the insect orders, with predatory caterpillars globally comprising less than 0.13% of the nearly 200,000 moth and butterfly species. Here, we report a species in which caterpillars are carnivorous inhabitants of spider’s webs, feeding on the arthropods that they find there. This Hawaiian lineage also boasts an unprecedented and macabre practice of decorating its portable larval home with the body parts of the spider prey it harvests from the web where it resides. Phylogenomic data suggest that the origin of this unique spider cohabitant is at least six million years old, more than one million years older than Hawaii’s current high islands. After decades of searching, only one species has been discovered, and it is restricted to 15 square kilometers of a single mountain range on the island of Oʻahu, meaning that other members of the lineage have disappeared from older islands. Conservation action to save this globally unique lineage is imperative and overdue.

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夏威夷毛虫在伪装在昆虫猎物身体部位的蜘蛛网上巡逻

鳞翅目是所有昆虫目中最食草的，在全球近20万种飞蛾和蝴蝶中，食肉毛虫只占不到0.13%。在这里，我们报告了一个物种，其中毛虫是蜘蛛网上的食肉居民，以它们在那里发现的节肢动物为食。这种夏威夷血统还有一种前所未有的可怕做法，那就是用它从蜘蛛网上捕获的蜘蛛猎物的身体部位来装饰它的便携式幼虫家。系统基因组学数据表明，这种独特的蜘蛛同居的起源至少有600万年的历史，比夏威夷现在的高岛还要早100万年。经过几十年的寻找，只发现了一个物种，而且它仅限于奥瓦胡岛上一个15平方公里的山脉，这意味着该谱系的其他成员已经从更古老的岛屿上消失了。拯救这一全球独一无二的物种的保护行动势在必行，而且早就应该采取。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Science 综合性期刊-综合性期刊

CiteScore

61.10

自引率

0.90%

发文量

审稿时长

2.1 months

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